I do most of the cooking in our household. I often find myself having to carefully monitor my time, putting in motion elements that will be vital for a meal later. If we’re eating baked potatoes, I have to put them in the oven an hour before (and start washing them 15 minutes before that). If I’m cooking a meal in the slow cooker, I need to do all the prep eight hours before dinner. If we’re having frozen chicken, it’s best if I can put it in the refrigerator the night before to defrost. If I want certain foods next week, I have to make sure they’re on the shopping list.
When we bought our house, we had a vision in mind for how our lives would look in five, 10, 20 years. “We can walk our child to elementary school and high school,” we told ourselves. “We can walk to nearby shopping. Even if these stores close, we’re centrally located to where we might want to be.”
When I was a kid, I remember planting pine-tree seedlings with my father in the yard. “These will provide shade for the house someday, in 10 or 20 years,” he explained.
One of the hardest things that humans do is laying the groundwork for the future. We get distracted by inconsequential moments because they’re now. We do ourselves future harm in pursuit of fleeting pleasure. We allow the future to become the present just because we weren’t thinking about it . . . until it’s too late. Even the relatively minor examples above took a lot of reflection and contemplation to come up with; I just don’t have scads of anecdotes about planning for the future.
God, on the other hand, is great about long-term plans. He excels in putting in motion the needs of the future. He has planted seeds of goodness that would not reach fruition for years or even generations.
In today’s readings, we see a few glimpses of God putting in place the groundwork for events that continue to resonate even today with us . . . with you, dear reader.
The reading from the Acts of the Apostles details Paul addressing the Athenians, laying the foundation for spreading the Good News to them. Paul couldn’t be certain that his words would have an effect, or what that effect might be; all he could know is that he spoke the Truth, and God would take care of the rest. To quote that reading, “When [the Athenians] heard about resurrection of the dead, some began to scoff, but others said, ‘We should like to hear you on this some other time.’ And so Paul left them. But some did join him, and became believers.”
Paul spoke. Some scoffed. Some believed. Some wanted to hear more later.
That action – and thousands, millions like it – ultimately spread the Christian faith throughout the world. And the process took centuries. Imagine that. Imagine being one of the original disciples of Jesus, one of a handful of believers, shivering in fear in a locked room after the resurrection. Could they have possibly imagined that, more or less, everyone on planet Earth will have heard some aspect of the Good News, will have had to make a decision of what they felt about the Truth? Or that billions of people would ultimately respond to that message by opening their hearts to Jesus, to the Church, to the teachings of the Faith?
Similarly, in today’s Gospel selection from John, Jesus tells of the coming of the Advocate – that is, the Holy Spirit: “But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth. He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming.”
And, indeed, those who heard those words may well not have imagined the power and potential of the Spirit — how the Spirit worked to ensure the spread of the Word throughout that world, how the Spirit works even now to help guide us and others to the Truth.
One of the most rewarding things I’ve had happen — reasonably often — is when people come to me and say, “That thing you wrote a year ago really touched me” or “I still remember that thing you said 10 years ago, and I wanted to say ‘thank you.'” I’m honored and humbled, because — when I write or speak — I’m not trying to lay seeds that will come to fruition years down the road.
But God does exactly that, and when I’ve written or spoken in a way that serves God and goodness, I like to think that the Spirit is working through my actions to produce results I can’t fathom, but which will no doubt be glorious.
My own efforts at planning for the future are weak and inadequate; I had to reflect and ponder for quite some time to come up with the meager examples I opened this reflection with. But God’s look to the future is all-knowing and wise, and God is willing to work through us toward glorious futures: the future possibility of Heaven for ourselves, and a possibly unimaginable world beyond tomorrow that gets ever closer to God’s ultimate plan.
We may no more comprehend the future of the Faith than Paul understood that his efforts with the Athenians would be part of the larger coming of Christendom to the world. But if we act as Jesus taught us and trust in the Spirit, we can nevertheless be part of that divine design, even if we don’t understand it. We may not know the future, but we know God, and God knows the future . . . and that should be enough assurance for a lifetime and beyond.
Today’s readings: Acts 17:15,22—18:1; Ps 148:1-2,11-12,13,14; Jn 16:12-15
