What if we created the kind of environment where people didn’t have to go outside the church to dream and imagine and create the future?
What if we didn’t have to go outside the narrative of Christ to invent and to create this beautiful reality that is known as the future? Most of us have a passive view of the future—our view is that it already exists, that it’s already determined, that it’s already going to be whatever it’s going to be, and we wrap it up in our theology and our faith.
But what about those of us who have a dynamic view of the future—that the future is created by human choices and human actions? For us, we know the future is an integration of the divine act and the human will. This is perfectly in line with the sovereignty of God because it’s how he designed the future to happen!
So, what if we were the stewards of God’s future?
What if the church’s principle role was to be an agent of change to create a future that is only in the imagination of God right now?
I remember speaking at Columbia University. I was thrown into a debate with a scientist and an ethicist. The whole conversation was “What Can Be Known?”
The scientist said, “Only empirical information can be known.”
The ethicist said, “Only human actions can be known.”
Then it was my turn.
I said, “I have to admit I know something I’m not supposed to know. As a follower of Christ, what I know are things we shouldn’t know. There are things you can know that go beyond the senses—like knowing you’re in love. You know there is a chair in the room, and that the walls are painted red, and that it’s hot outside, and that the earth revolves around the sun, and that you are in love! What humans know goes beyond our knowledge. You can know things you’re not supposed to know because humans are designed for multiple layers of knowing.”
I love what Jesus said to Peter: “Who do you say that I am?”
Peter said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”
Jesus said, “You got this one right, Peter [and that’s how I know you cheated]. Flesh and blood have not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.”
Summary: “Peter, you know something you shouldn’t be able to know, unless the knowledge came from the Creator of the universe.”
I love this window into the potential of human action and interaction; that God would whisper into the human imagination a picture of what he wants to create. This is a glimpse into the potential that is ours as materializers of the invisible when we choose to act on what God has spoken and make visible that which is known only in eternity.
We are residents of the future living in present times.
When we stand in the intersection between time and eternity we break free from “what is” and bring into reality “what if”!