Several years ago, an NFL coach expressed his philosophy for signing players and building his team as “The future is now!”  The context behind his statement was that his team was woefully in need of rebuilding.  He believed that he could not afford to draft young hopefuls with raw talent that could potentially become great performers in a few years.  Instead, he was going to focus on obtaining the best possible free agents with mature and proven talent, and build his team around them.  His thought was that this approach was a quicker path to a winning team and a shot at a Super Bowl trophy.  To be honest, I don’t really remember how this worked out for him and his team, but I know that his philosophy has stuck in my mind for many years.

When I was a younger man, I believed that the future was a far-off point in time where I would arrive some day.  When I got there, it would be obvious that I had arrived at my appointed rendezvous with the future.

Well many years have come and gone, and I often marvel at how fast the years have passed by.  It’s generally said that wisdom comes with age, and while I don’t profess to be wise, I know that there was, and is, a lot of truth in the old NFL coach’s philosophy.  Our future is not a distinct point in time somewhere down the road.  Rather, it begins in the very next instant of time, and takes a course set from our most recent decisions and actions.

All of us have made decisions in the past that now shape what we are, where we are, and who we have become.  I will confess that not all of my decisions have been wise, and probably not all of yours have been wise either.  Unfortunately, we cannot go back and un-do bad decisions.  We can however, change the shape of the future by what we decide we are going to do next.

There is one decision that it is never too late to make, and it is one decision that will forever change your future.  That is the decision to know God, and know him in a way that perhaps you have never known him before.  He wants to reveal himself to you, and all you have to do is to decide to earnestly seek him out.  He wants you to know how much be loves you, and how he demonstrated his love through the life and death of Jesus Christ.  He paid the price for every sin I have committed, and for every sin you have committed.

Whatever bad decisions you have made in the past, there is one decision you can make right now that will begin to change your future and change it forever!

See you at the finish line.