If anyone knew about trusting God for the future, it was Corrie ten Boom. Born in Amsterdam in 1892, she grew up in a Christian family under the careful instruction of a father who was a skilled jeweller and watchmaker. Corrie became the first certified female watchmaker in the Netherlands. When World War II broke out, the family began to hide Jews in their home. In 1944, a Dutch informant exposed their work to the Nazis which led to their arrest the following day by the Gestapo. Corrie and her sister were sent to Ravensbrück Concentration Camp, a camp for 'deviant' women. Her sister succumbed to the systematic torture and squalid conditions of the camp, while Corrie was later released 'accidentally' through a clerical error. Her moving story is told in 'The Hiding Place', a book which I highly recommend. Corrie went on to write other valued works about her life and mission. She lived a life of faith in God without bitterness about her past, teaching the need to forgive and let God lead in all circumstances.
When it comes to our future on earth, it is largely unknown. We can guess how things will turn out, but we can never be sure. The unknown can make us afraid. Fear is one of the strategies of the Evil One. For those of us who know the Lord Jesus as Saviour, we do not need to fear; indeed we are commanded not to fear over 300 times in the Bible!
The Lord comforted His disciples before He went to the cross with these words:
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. John 14:27
Peace reigns in the absence of fear. The Lord's words are not empty sentiments because He is the Prince of Peace, the One who gives His shalom and casts out fear.
Paul wrote to Timothy:
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
2 Timothy 1:7
Paul had experience of the Lord's encouragement and help in extreme situations. He met with beatings, imprisonment, shipwrecks, stoning and suffering, both physically and mentally, as he travelled for the sake of the Gospel. He testified in the same letter:
But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion's mouth.
2 Timothy 4:17
Paul could trust his unknown earthly future into the hands of his known God. His life was intact until he had fully run his course and completed the work the Lord had given him to do. Then he entered with a 'rich entrance' into 'the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ' (2 Peter 1:11). God had revealed the eternal future of every believer to Paul in partial revelation and we are privileged to be able to discover these mysteries in the Bible today. Because Christ died and rose again, we will live with Him in eternal glory. This part of the believer's future is sure.
In the meantime, may we be encouraged to walk with a confident trust in God and place our futures into His hand. There may be unexpected twists and turns in the journey, but let us trust Him because He knows the end from the beginning and offers us a future without fear.
