I don’t know if you keep any sort of journal.  I have kept something like a journal off and on since before I was married.  The interesting thing is that I typically don’t write a single thing until I’m upset, disappointed or completely depressed.  That means my journal for some extremely dismal reading!  If you were to read my journal, you would probably plunge into depression yourself since everything seems horrible.

If you did journal, flashforward to December 31st 2010… Remember this is a flashforward to the end of this year some 11 months from now.  Now imagine you writing an end-of-year wrap-up in your journal.

Could you see yourself writing something like this:

Today is dec. 31st, Man, what a year 2010 has been!

my marriage has never been better than it has over the past 7 months.  Even though I lost my job this year, we made through with faith.  And as for my new job, it doesn’t pay as much, but my family seems happier than ever, and we’ve got all that we need.

This year I overcame many problems and addictions that I have struggled with year after year.  But not this year.  My church is great, and we were able to do incredible things.  I can see a lot has come out of me and some others getting  more serious about God than ever before. We’ve seen families like ours experiencing awesome change.

2010 was also the year that I took my health seriously.  I guess getting rid of fear and stress really was better for my heart after all.  And now I see the difference all this is making in my kids and my spouse since I adjusted my priorities and became the Christian I never was before.

2010 was like no year before.

Play around with this idea of flashforwarding what you would like to see by the end of 2010.  I hope this series of messages about the future has motivated you to make your spiritual and family goals a reality by this time next year.  Share some of your thought about what you saw when you flashed-forward.  And remember it’s not just what you see in the future…it’s what you do now with what you see.

Today I reached my goal to be “overweight.”  Sounds funny, but it really was my goal.  I know, I know…you’re outraged too.  But I’ve accepted it, and moved on.  Better yet, I determined to get fitter. You see, according to Wii Fit from Nintendo, I was in the “obese” category.   So, my first goal was to go from obese to overweight.  And if it sticks past today, you can give me a big fat checkmark on that one!

Others may think that becoming overweight is the opposite of hardwork, but for me it took a lot of initiative.  It takes determination to get where you’re going, even if your goal is a little odd.

The Bible commends us to have goals and to work hard to achieve them.  It also tells us how wrong it is to procrastinate and make excuses. Here’s another seemingly backward way of saying it…

“The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, but the soul of the diligent is made fat.” (Proverbs13:4)

In other words, the person who isn’t diligent about what he or she wants, ain’t getting it.  However the diligent person will work and be richly rewarded for it.  In this translation of the Bible, it says, that the person gets “fat.”  But that’s just another way of saying that he or she is extremely satisfied with the results…you know, “fat and happy!”

What points will you plot throughout this year?  This weekend will be a motivational conclusion to the Flashforward message series.  I hope you’re ready for the future that you’re busy working towards.

I’m not very good at predicting the future…I doubt anyone took me for a stock market phenom.  But often we wish we could glimpse the future.  The Flashforward message series has me thinking, “what if we really could see the future?”

If I could have dreamed of seeing myself where I am now about five years ago or maybe even two years ago, first of all, I wouldn’t have believed it.  I would have seen myself in my own home, working at the prison, and thriving at the  coolest church ever as lead pastor and planter   and thought, “No way.”  I’m sure I would have dismissed that dream as a result of indigestion rather than a true window into the future.

What if just maybe I believed it to be a prophecy?  In that case, I still wouldn’t have the slightest idea how to make that future come true.  If God were to allow us to see our future selves and circumstances, I just don’t know what we would do with it all.

It makes me think of that tv series I used to watch called Early Edition. The main character would receive a newspaper displaying future events.  Knowing what he knew, he would spend all day trying to prevent the accidents, crimes, and so on before they could become real news.  He had to decide what incidents were important enough to try and change, and other things, he just let happen.

So, if you could see your future what difference would it make?  Isn’t it odd that the more that is revealed to us, the more questions we have.

• What are your thoughts?
• What would you do if you knew more about yourself six months into the future?
• What is the first thing you would do?

This Sunday, I’ll be in the book of Revelation and talking about fast forwarding to the future, and what we’re supposed to do with knowing what the future holds for both believers and non-believers.  See you then!

Have any of you gotten into the tv show, Flashforward?  It’s based on a novel by the same title first published in 1999.  The basic plot is that everyone in the world loses consciousness for about two minutes.  During this “global blackout”, people see their futures, 21 years in the future for the novel, and six months in the future for the tv adaptation.

What if you could see the future, if only six months ahead?  What would you see?

It’s not so far fetched to think about yourself six months or even years  in the future.  We do that sort of thing at New Years anyway.  We envision what we would like to see and we set goals to reach that preferred future…or, as we say at New Years, we make resolutions.  Here are some popular New Years Resolutions

• Start exercising
• Lose Weight
• Read the Bible More
• Enjoy Life More
• Get Organised
• Get Out of Debt
• Do Morning Devotionals
• Stop smoking
• Spend more time with the Family
• Help Others

Just imagine if you did see your future self in six months…and you didn’t like what you saw.  In the Flashforward story, that is certainly the case with many.  For instance, some saw nothing in their “flashforward,” and were left wondering if they would even be alive in six months. However, futures can be changed…both in the fictional story and in reality.

It’s simple…if we desire a particular future, we make choices now that drive us toward it.  On the other hand, if we fear that we’re headed for future trouble, we also can make choices that drive us away from it. I like this quote from John M. Richardson, Jr.

“When it comes to the future, there are three kinds of people:
those who let it happen, those who make it happen, and those who wonder what happened.”

So go ahead and attempt to flashforward some six months into 2010, and begin making the appropriate choices now. This Sunday I’ll continue the discussion on our future by first starting with the past in a message called “Flashback.”  I hope that one of your resolutions is to join us at Team Church in the New Year…see you Sunday!

Over the course of this New Years message series, we will be challenged to act in the present based on the past that God frees us from, and the future that God promises us.

Jan 3…Flashback
Jan 10…Fast Forward
Jan 17…Flashforward,