Chapter 24
Trust the Promise of Future Grace
Whether it be a hard conversation later today or your retirement decades from now, future trouble is one of our chief sources of anxiety. How do you turn worry into hope?
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Pre-Suffering
In the heart of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus devoted a lengthy section to the topic of anxiety (Matthew 6:25-34). In that section, Jesus makes a clear distinction between today’s trouble and tomorrow’s. 
“Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6:34).
Worry is the decision to import tomorrow’s trouble into today and suffer it prematurely. If the thing you’re worried about happens, God’s intention is that you only feel that pain once—when it happens. Not ten times today and again when it happens. 
Many of the things we worry about never happen at all. In that case, God’s desire is for you to go through that pain zero times. Choosing to suffer ahead of time is needless, self-inflicted suffering. And for what? 
“Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” (Matthew 6:27).
The CSB translates this verse “Can any of you add a single cubit to his height by worrying?” Whichever translation is correct, the point is the same. You can’t accomplish anything good by worrying.
If it’s something that calls for planning, that’s good anxiety. Let it energize you to do the necessary preparation. But if there’s nothing that can be done today, then worrying about it is folly. And God forbids it.
“Do not worry about tomorrow” (Matthew 6:34).
Driving Blind
Two aspects of the future scare us—what we don’t know, and what we think we do know.
The unknown is always frightening. And nothing is more hidden from our view than the future. We can’t even see one moment into the future, yet we’re hurling into that unseen world at the rate of 24 hours per day. It’s like driving a car with no brakes and the windshield completely covered. 
This is why mankind has always been attracted to divination—the effort to get a supernatural glimpse into the future. Ancient techniques ranged from casting lots to examining animal entrails. Modern forms include astrology, palm readers, tarot cards, and crystal balls. No method has worked, but mankind keeps trying.
Leo Oppenheim, one of the most distinguished experts in Near Eastern Studies of his generation, studied ancient cuneiform writings of Sumaria, Assyria, and Babylon. He estimated that 90% of all the writings found, religious or secular, have to do with divination. 
We want to know the future because if we could just get a hint of what’s coming, we wouldn’t be blindsided by trouble. We could prepare or maybe even dodge those troubles altogether. If we could just see into the future, that would calm our anxiety. 
Or would it?
You Don’t Want to Know the Future
Think of all the troubles you’ve endured over the past twelve months. If God would have come to you a year ago and showed you all that on a big screen, would that have reduced your anxiety? Or would it have increased it tenfold? If you saw all the trouble you will face over just the next twenty-four hours, you probably wouldn’t get out of bed.
So instead of telling us what's coming, God tells us what we need to know to be ready for what's coming. 
“Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:33). 
Everything you need tomorrow will fall into place if you seek righteousness today. You’ll be ready for whatever happens, so you can sit back, trust God, and enjoy not having to carry the weight of tomorrow today. 
With knowledge comes responsibility. If God showed you the future, it would be more pressure than God wants you to bear. Enjoy not knowing the future.
Imagining Unhappiness
But what about the things you can foresee? While you don’t know for sure what tomorrow will bring, you often have a pretty good idea. You don’t have the details, but you can see trouble is coming—and it’s scary. You believe whatever God sends your way will be for your good, but you’re still afraid. 
What are you afraid of? As we established in Chapter 11, we don’t fear trouble. We don’t even fear suffering. We fear unhappiness. If you’re afraid of tomorrow, it’s because you are imagining a version of tomorrow in which you will be unhappy. Whether you’ve consciously thought of it in these terms or not, your soul believes that your happiness is on the line.
In the previous chapter, we learned to use the gift of imagination to assist our faith. Daydreaming about being happy in the Lord amid trouble will help your soul believe that it’s possible.
Worry (daydreaming about unhappiness in future trouble) does the opposite. It destroys faith. All daydreaming builds neural networks. So worry is a misuse of imagination because it trains your brain, your nervous system, and your soul to believe that if the worst happens, God won’t be enough.
It may feel like your worry is out of your control, but it’s not. If your imagination insists on dreaming up the most painful outcome tomorrow, you can still guide it. You can say, “Okay, soul, if you’re so intent on imagining a painful tomorrow, knock yourself out. But no matter how painful the scenario you dream up, I will commandeer the daydream and imagine being happy in the Lord throughout the ordeal.” If you imagine yourself happy amid that trouble, it’s not worry and it won’t cause anxiety. It will calm your anxiety.
Today’s Trouble Is Enough
After forbidding worry, Jesus gives us a promise and a statement that will help us let go of worry. The statement assures us that God is intentional about assigning the right amount of trouble to each of your days.
“Do not worry about tomorrow … Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6:34).
The worrier looks at today’s suffering and says, “That’s not enough. I want more. Give me today’s suffering and tomorrow’s. I want it all now.” Worry is trouble-greed. 
But Jesus places tomorrow’s trouble off limits. You have to wait until tomorrow for tomorrow’s suffering because today’s trouble is just enough.
God designed today’s trouble to be just what you need today. It will test your faith and build your character in just the right ways. Tomorrow’s trouble won’t. If the doctor gives you medicine and tells you to take one pill today, don’t swallow ten. If you pile tomorrow’s pain on top of today’s, you will O.D. on trouble. Don’t go over your God-given dose. If you limit yourself to today’s trouble only, you might be surprised at how well you can handle it.
When you have a complex problem, ask yourself, “What portion of this problem belongs in the present?” Deal with that part now. The rest is off limits. And today’s portion is often smaller than you think.
If you are overwhelmed, you can apply the same principle to hours, rather than days. What portion of this problem must be handled between now and sixty minutes from now? What does God expect of you in this hour? Each hour has enough trouble of its own. And most of the time, this hour’s trouble, by itself, is quite manageable. `
Future Grace
Jesus also includes a promise to help us let go of worry. 
“Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself” (Matthew 6:34). 
That promise is often overlooked because it requires some careful thought. What does it mean that tomorrow will worry about itself? Obviously, a day on the calendar can’t worry. Only sentient beings can give thought to problems. 
Jesus’ point is that the sentient beings who will be involved in tomorrow’s troubles (most significantly, you and God) will handle those troubles when they happen. So let’s consider God’s role and then yours.
God’s Role in Handling Tomorrow’s Trouble 
When the children of Israel faced the terrifying task of crossing into the Promised Land and facing hostile nations, listen to how God calmed their fears.
“The Lord your God himself will cross over ahead of you. He will destroy these nations before you, and you will take possession of their land” (Deuteronomy 31:3). 
Usually God calmed their fears by saying, “I will go with you.” But this time he says, “I will go out ahead of you.” God promises go first so that by the time the people arrive, they will find a situation prepared by God in which they will prevail. 
The implication of Jesus’ promise, “tomorrow will worry about itself” is similar. The Lord is traveling right out there about a day’s journey ahead of you. All future trouble will have to meet up with God before reaching you. As long as you follow along at his pace, you will be fine. But if use your powers of worry to transport yourself into the future, you will find yourself in a time where God has not yet gone ahead and paved the way.
In 1 Kings 17, God sent Elijah to a place where there was no food. Then he said this:
“I have ordered the ravens to feed you there" (1 Kings 17:4).
Whatever desolate place God might send you tomorrow, he will order the ravens to feed you there. He will move the very creation to supply your needs. Of course it looks scary now—God hasn’t made those preparations yet.
God is moving at just the right pace. Stay behind him where it is safe. Your life is a huge task, but God has divided it into very manageable portions called “days.” Tackle one of those per day, and you’ll be right on schedule.
Your Role in Handling Tomorrow’s Trouble
You might say, “Okay. God will go ahead of me and prepare the way. But he’s not going to do everything for me. There are some things I’m going to have to do, and that’s the part I’m worried about. I look in the mirror and I don’t see a person who’s up to the task.”
That’s not a problem, because when the future comes, you’ll be a different person, because when the future comes, you’ll be a different person.
According to tradition, when the Apostle Peter was crucified as a martyr, he asked to be crucified upside down because he was not worthy to die the same way his Lord died. Could you do that? Or do you think if you were threatened with crucifixion, your faith would falter? 
Most of us would say, “I don’t know if I have that kind of courage.” If that’s you, don’t feel bad. Neither did Peter … until the day came when he needed it. More than once, he proved to be a coward (see Matthew 26:69-74 Galatians 2:11-13). But when the ultimate test came, he was strong.
God will do that for you, too.
“The Lord is faithful, and he will strengthen and protect you from the evil one (2 Thessalonians 3:3).
God promises to supply the strength you’ll need. What else does God promise regarding your future? In a word, everything. 
“My God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).
Whatever energy you need, whatever wisdom is required, whatever courage, money, experience, friends, resources—God will make everything you need available to you.
But remember, trusting any of God’s promises begins with trusting the promise of his perfect timing. 
Future Grace
Notice the verb tenses.
“The Lord … will strengthen” (2 Thessalonians 3:3).
“My God will meet all your needs” (Philippians 4:19).
Future tense. If you don’t think you could handle your future trouble now, it’s probably because you can’t. All that grace that’s promised is promised in the future. Don’t expect it today.
Have you noticed how the anticipation of trouble is usually worse than the trial itself? We do pretty well handling a crisis when it happens. But imagining it is overwhelming. That’s because God gives you the grace to handle it when it happens. But you don’t have that grace today.
In recent days, a 22-year-old nursing student, Laken Riley, has been in the news. She was beaten to death by Jose Antonio Ibarra. News stories like that capture my emotions more than most. Of all the ways to die, the one that seems most terrifying to me is being beaten to death. 
Will that happen to me? Maybe. If it does, God promises to supply the grace I will need when it happens.
What would that grace be like? I don’t know. I can’t imagine anything that would make such an experience bearable. But isn’t that exactly what I should expect? I don’t have the grace to handle it now because it’s not happening now. If I imagine what it would be like to be beaten to death, and I project the grace I have today onto that day, of course it won’t be enough.
Imagine enrolling in college as a math major. On your first day, the instructor passes out an exam. As you scan it, fear rises. Everything on the page looks like gibberish. You can’t even understand the questions, much less answer them. 
Then the professor explains, “This is the final exam for the highest level class you will take as a senior. Over the next four years, you’ll receive everything you need to know to pass this test.”
The whole class breathes a sigh of relief. Nothing has changed. You must pass this test. And you would fail if you took it now. But you’re not worried. When the time comes, you’ll be ready.
Are you worried about the future? You’re looking at the final exam and you haven’t yet taken the class. We can actually look forward to the future, trouble and all, because it will be so full of new grace.
Daily Grace
Isn’t that how Jesus taught us to pray? “Give us today our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11). We might have preferred “Give us right now our annual bread.” But Jesus taught us to seek from God what we need for each day on the day it’s needed. 
Jesus wasn’t only speaking about food. “Daily bread” refers to all our daily needs, including daily strength.
“Your strength will equal your days” (Deuteronomy 33:25).
Each time God gives you another day, he gives you strength for that day. 
God taught this principle to his people in the wilderness with the manna. He told them to gather what they needed for the day, and if they gathered extra, he made it go bad (see Exodus 16:18-20).
Why were they tempted to gather extra? Why do you and I want grace ahead of time? Because then we wouldn’t have to trust God. We could just rely on our stockpile. Why does God make us wait for tomorrow for tomorrow’s grace? To force us to always trust in him because God knows that the act of trusting in him is more important than all the things we’re trusting him for. Nothing will do you more good than living in the rhythm of daily trust.
Lamentations 3:23 says his mercies are new every morning. God wants us to experience that fresh, recurring daily newness. He doesn’t want us eating stale manna. Enjoy today’s grace, and look forward to tomorrow’s fresh resupply. When you wake up tomorrow brand new grace will be there waiting for you, tailor made for tomorrow’s trouble. 
When you consider the trouble tomorrow holds, the question isn’t whether it will be more than you can handle. The question is, will it be more than you and God can handle. And the answer to that is obvious. That’s why God so often responds to our fears by saying, “I will be with you.” He won’t just be there. He’ll be there strengthening you. 
Tomorrow’s Joy
Do you want to hear something really amazing? While God places tomorrow’s pain off limits, God has granted us full, unrestricted access to tomorrow’s joy. You are not permitted to jump the gun on suffering tomorrow’s pain, but you are allowed to jump the gun on enjoying the wonderful things that God has promised will be there. 
The biblical word for that is hope. Hope is the exact opposite of worry. Worry is when you feel pain today because of tomorrow’s hardship. Hope is when you feel happiness today because of tomorrow’s blessings.
And if you want to see that shift from worry to hope, just read Psalms 131.
“I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, put your hope in the Lord” (Psalms 131:2-3).
Hope will quiet your worrying soul.

Godliness Training Exercises
•	Memorize Matthew 6:34
•	Take control of your imagination. Whenever worry arises, be very intentional about imagining yourself happy in the Lord when the dreaded event occurs.