Want to Know Your Future?

The fiesta was probably the most exciting time in our town. The rides, game booths, and circus came—so did the fortune tellers.

I was ten and in 6th grade, and after class, my friends and I decided to spend our allowance that day on knowing our future. We had heard that the seeress had beautiful fingers and a crystal ball that gleamed. 

Five giggly girls heard all we wanted to hear. She told me I'd marry a foreigner and that I would have a stormy marriage. At age 10, nobody worries about marriage, but I was excited to meet the foreigner I was to marry.

Years later, I would live in the US for sometime. That was when I got confused on who was the foreigner—my American males friends, who were US nationals, or the other boys from different countries who were classified as aliens.

Then I met my future husband, a foreigner from every angle: an alien in the US, and although he was born in the Philippines, he was full-blooded Chinese.

So far, so good, the seeress was spot on. Stormy marriage? Never was, and never will be.

I tell this story when young people get excited over horoscopes. (This, in addition to my exciting assignment in advertising to write horoscopes from my imagination for a few products.)

We live in a culture where people badly want to know their future, just as the ancient Israelites did. They were always tempted to consult seers and psychics for answers.

God warned them to stay away from those ungodly sources, because Israel's future was determined only by their faithfulness to God's covenant: Deut. 10-12, “There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who practices witchcraft, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who casts a spell, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For whoever does these things is detestable to the Lord . . .”

The seeress with beautiful fingers and a crystal ball that gleamed could never have predicted what I would be today. My plans and dreams went to so many directions—with highs and lows along the way. 

Life has been full of surprises, and with each surprise comes endless wonder at how the Lord manages our steps that we commit to Him.

There is always that desire to want to know the future, but if we believe that there is only one sovereign God who holds the answers we seek, we can go through life appreciating every grace that comes all through our days and our future.