KELSIE PETERSEN
Last month, I wrote about the safe and convenient “box” that Adventism provides. It is a neat and tidy place to be, one that provides all the answers as well as a sense of safety and security.
As I considered what to write about this week and as I contemplated the continuing change in the world over the last sex weeks, I found myself, once again, thinking about “the box.”
Leaving Adventism required me to examine and reassess everything I had known about what was true and real. That assessment included my view of the future. Since Adventism is heavy on eschatology and end times, I had a pretty clear view of what I believed would be the nature and order of events at “the end.” Examining Adventism, however, and learning the truth of what the Bible actually says, required me to “let go” of what I “knew” about the future and to accept the unknown. Yes, we have biblical prophecy which gives a general description of what will happen, but it is far more vague than what I had known—and unwittingly clung to—as an Adventist. Letting go of the Adventist worldview required me to admit the uncertainty of the exact timing and nature of end-time events.
The state of the world and the speed at which things are changing—familiar goalposts are moving, and nothing seems predictable or stable—have caused me to face this uncertainty yet again.
The state of the world and the speed at which things are changing—familiar goalposts are moving, and nothing seems predictable or stable—have caused me to face this uncertainty yet again. I admit that I was kind-of cruising along life, assuming that, while I may face personal trials (it took a few of those for me to realize I needed to expect them), the world would go on largely as it had throughout most of my life. Any change would be slow and gradual.
Cue 2020. Cue 2021.
As the weeks and months have gone on, my hope that life as we knew it would resume “in a few weeks” faded, and changes and developments in the culture around me seem to have come out of left field. Things I never could have imagined, even in my post-Adventist acceptance of “anything is possible,” have nonetheless surprised me. The lack of predictability is hard for me to handle sometimes, and I find myself waffling between missing my “box” and diving back into the process of figuring out how to proceed without it.
I’ve had to accept a new level of “I don’t know the future,” and it’s a new “layer” of emotional and mental “unpacking.”
I’ve had to accept a new level of “I don’t know the future,” and it’s a new “layer” of emotional and mental “unpacking.” I’ve had to try to focus on the here and now: on my family, my home, and the things God has given me to do. I haven’t always been successful in my commitment to this new focus—perhaps less often than I could have been—but it’s where I’ve set my course. I am reminded that, not only is the Lord working in the world in the big picture, but He is also working in ME. He is working in each member of my family; He is working in the people in my life and in people I have never met and will never meet. Ultimately, for those of us who have believed in His name, He is WITH us—“even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).
The future may be unpredictable for us, and it is more apparent now than ever before in our lifetimes, but when I am drawn back to both the grandeur and intricacy of His work in the world, I am comforted.
He is working all things together for my (and all believers’) good, and for HIS glory. And when His glory is fully revealed, all uncertainty, all pain, and all sorrow will be gone.
I can’t wait! †
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