Jeremiah 29:11 – "I know the plans I have for you", says the Lord, "Plans to prosper and not punish."

Leonard Cohen wrote the lyrics to The Future and we hear:

Give me back the Berlin wall
Give me Stalin and St. Paul
I've seen the future, brother:
It is murder.

Cohen was only partially joking when he invoked the era of the cold war, a time when the world was divided categorically into good and evil, us and them, success and failure. Now we are all on the same side — whatever that is — or maybe on no side at all. Today's world, in which the only certainty is constant and rapid change, is frighteningly complex and confusing.

Margaret Robertson, who works for the Presbyterian Church in Canada offices, wrote,

We know that life patterns are changing for everyone. Change happens to all people in every age, but not as rapidly as it does in the '90s. We also know that religious life is different. If we look into the history of Christianity, we see that this is not new either, but it is new to us. We like those old ways of doing things, but some of the old ways don't work any more. We have a choice. We can choose to keep working in the same old way, even knowing that it doesn't work, or we can choose to look for new ways. If we choose new ways it means that we choose to live and not die…

Prayer: God, you hold past, present and future in the palm of your hand: we look to you for guidance and direction as we wonder about the moments of our life. Help us to walk with Christ by our side and the Spirit as our guide. Amen.

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About the author:

Kenn Stright <kennethstright@yahoo.ca>
West Petpeswick, Nova Scotia, Canada
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