Let me introduce you today to a very special tree.  It’s a massive one on the western border of our property, sprawled comfortably with dangling limbs and a broad trunk.  It was there over thirty years ago when my parents first bought this land, and it’s been unshaken by the intervening time.  This tree is a persimmon tree.  

You may not have ever seen a persimmon tree, but chances are good that you’ve seen, or at least heard of, the persimmons it produces.  Perhaps you’ve even had a disagreeable run-in with one.  Among my earliest wilderness lessons received from my parents, right there with “Don’t go in the woods after dark,” “Wolves are faster than you are,” and “Wasps will hurt you,” was “Don’t eat a persimmon.”  My beloved dog Angel, however, didn’t heed this warning.  One bright autumn day, she and I were wandering along the property near this tree.  Being a dog who routinely ingested everything from expensive dog beds to telephones to (plugged-in!) Christmas lights, she discovered a persimmon lying temptingly on the ground and promptly began chewing on it before I realized what was occurring.  In a matter of a few seconds, she made a very odd noise—something between a cough, a sneeze, and a croak—and spit the persimmon as far as she could.  Alerted by her odd noises, I turned around just in time to witness her nearly choking from the effects of the fruit.  She recovered quickly but never touched a persimmon again.

That’s not to say that the fruit of the persimmon is always worthless.  Although it is bitter and highly astringent when unripe, after several weeks it turns a gorgeous crimson color and becomes soft and quite sweet.  Most country dwellers attribute the transformation in taste to the effects of the first frost, but it’s actually due mostly to the length of time needed for complete maturation (although freezing an unripe persimmon does give it a boost of sweetness).  The ripe fruit is said to be so palatable that abundant recipes exist for using persimmons in delicious dishes from breads to cookies to jams to cakes. I must admit these desserts sound appetizing, but knowing how terrible a “green” persimmon is, I’ve never been brave enough to sample a ripe one in any form.  For me, the true value of this fruit lies not in its conduciveness to cooking but in something far less flashy—its seed.  

Each autumn, when misty overtones begin to cloud the fruit’s maroon skin, I collect a few persimmons. I bring them home and line them up on the ground outside my house.  Then, with a sharp knife, I carefully slice through the pulpy fruit to the flat seed inside, which somewhat resembles a pumpkin seed.  The next step is to cut the seed in half lengthwise (no easy task, since it is slender and slippery).  But when the two halves of the seed are finally pried open, a wonderful surprise awaits.  

The inside of the seed is pearlescent with a light green cast, and against this backdrop is a stark white outline—the embryo of the future persimmon tree.  This outline can take three distinct forms—a spoon-shaped one, a slender one that resembles a knife, or one that looks amazingly like a three-tined fork.  According to folklore, the shape of the embryo indicates the caliber of the coming winter.  A fork predicts a mild winter, with little snow and less cold than normal.  A knife signifies icy conditions, with wind that cuts like a knife.  A spoon forecasts heavier than normal snowfall—according to tradition, the spoon is actually a snow shovel, which you will need if you find this shape in a persimmon seed.  

Yes, I know it sounds a bit odd (although, may I point out, no weirder than allowing the presence of a rodent’s shadow to mark the official beginning of spring…).  And I have to admit, it’s a far from foolproof method to make winter plans.  I’ve seen well-defined spoons prior to a winter when I wore shorts at Christmastime, and I’ve spent a season shivering in heavy parkas after finding forks.  My guess is that the embryo shape has more to do with the past—growing conditions, summer rainfall, and tree health—than the future.  However, the hassle of cutting the seed, the inconclusive results I’ve received, and my own skepticism aren’t enough to prevent me from slicing persimmons every fall. The fruits are beginning to blush even now, so some evening in the next few days, you might find me in the abbreviated autumn twilight, striding home across the serge-brown fields, breath dangling in the frosty air, with persimmons in my hands and my knife in my pocket.  

Perhaps the persimmons were more truthful in the old days when the legend originated; or maybe the people of that time, farmers and ranchers who lived off the land in a precarious balance of hard work and capricious nature, were simply grappling for any indicator, no matter how ridiculous, of the characteristics of the winter and by extension of next year’s crop.  Today, in our computerized economy when hands don’t touch dirt that often anymore and central heating is available at the flick of a finger, the persimmon’s power is no longer needed.  However, although living conditions may have changed, the lure of knowing the future has not.  No matter where, when, or how they live, humans all share an insatiable desire to see into the future—not merely on a global or cosmic scale, but in their own private lives.  

Who knows what drives this urge?  Is it hope? Anticipation?  Mere hubris?  I’ve come to believe that although it may wear a veneer of idle curiosity, our desire to know the future is based more on fear than any other factor.  Consider the fact that now, at this very moment, we are plunging forward into a future about which we know nothing, at a speed we cannot alter, toward a final destiny shrouded in mystery, and even the most courageous soul is bound to feel a quiver of anxiety.  To know the future, then, is to control it, or at the very least to be equipped to handle its fallout.  Just as the farmers applied the persimmon’s “wisdom” to their preparations for the coming snows, bracing against nature’s onslaught and storm-proofing barns and houses, people today seem to believe that if they are only warned, they can take precautions to shield themselves and their loved ones from coming mayhem.  Thus, we are fascinated with the future—forever straining our eyes to see beyond the dim lantern of today into the black abyss that stretches before us.

When we think of looking to the future, we usually picture occult proceedings like tarot cards, horoscopes, and palm readers—demonically-inspired mediums leading gullible souls to disaster, or even corny newspaper astrologers issuing vague hints about our fate.  We might envision Saul, who on the eve of a massive battle became so anxious over the outcome that he disobeyed the clear word of God (as well as his own decree) and visited a witch (1 Samuel 28).  Too often, Christians assume that maintaining a healthy relationship with the future consists only of avoiding these practices. However, as long as he can shift our focus from God, the devil does not care how that is accomplished.  And he has far more subtle traps for us that not only skew our perspective on the future but can also cause us to implicitly question the very nature of the God we serve.

One of these traps, which is becoming increasingly common in our world, is the mindset of ignoring the future.  Yes, we know things are unpredictable, but we’d prefer not to remind ourselves of that. The reality of our own incapacity to direct our lives brings too much terror if we allow ourselves to think about it—so we banish it from our minds.  In its place, we focus solely on the present, as though the details of daily life can freeze time.  If we dare look ahead, we gaze complacently down a gently winding road of weeks and months and years; our own mortality, or even the certainty of painful seasons, is reduced to a vague blur that dangles forever in the distance.  No wonder we are shocked when tragedy arrives!

This mindset is birthed in pride—the conviction that somehow, we alone are sufficient to chart our course. It’s easy to believe that we have “conquered the future” through our intelligence, hard work, hefty savings account, college degree, or comfortable job.  Jesus told a story about a man with this view:  “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’  So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God” (Luke 12:16b-21 ESV).  

None of us ever want to be deemed a “fool” by God.  Believing that we are sufficient unto ourselves, however, is truly the most foolish thing we could do.  Our hopes for the future, no matter how stirring, must always be seasoned with a strong dose of humility and a recognition that “the mind of man plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps” (Proverbs 16:9 NASB).  

It’s very fitting that immediately after presenting this parable, Jesus begins His most famous teaching on the future:  “Do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on” (Luke 12:22b ESV).  His words are targeted for those who fall on the opposite end of the spectrum from ignoring the future and choose to obsess over it instead.  These people realize that they are completely unprepared for what might befall them, and they’re right. Unfortunately, they allow this conviction not to drive them to God and His strength but to crush them beneath a load of anxiety they were never intended to bear.  (I encourage you to read the rest of the chapter, although it is too long to completely include here.)

Like those who ignore the future, these people embrace an inflated understanding of their own power to control their fate.  So they drown out the anxiety through planning, as though their feverish preparations can freeze time.  They consider every contingency, envision every hypothetical scenario, and decide on their reactions to situations that are far from certain.  How unreasonable it is to draw maps of terrain we’ve never seen! 

And worry is not only unwise—it’s also epically useless.  Jesus continued His lesson on anxiety with a telling question:  “And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?  If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest?” (Luke 12:25-26 ESV).  When I feel the urge to fixate on a real or imagined future issue, drowning in the details, I often recall this sage quote by Corrie ten Boom.  Imprisoned in the Nazi concentration camps, stripped of her most basic human rights, and bereaved of her family, Corrie certainly had more reason to worry than most of us today.  However, she chose instead to trust God, soothing her soul with this truth: “Worrying is carrying tomorrow’s load with today’s strength—carrying two days at once.  It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time.  Worrying doesn’t empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.”

In our culture, worry has been reincarnated as preparedness or even lauded as a symptom of being a meticulous person.  However, we must not forget that according to Jesus, worry is not a mark of distinction but a trait of pagans—in other words, those who have no relationship with God. What a sad day when God’s people begin to live like pagans, cowering from the future instead of embracing it as the story their Father is lovingly writing for them!  

On the outside, these two mindsets—ignoring the future and obsessing over it—look very different.  But inwardly, they are both rooted in a desperate bid for control and a distrust of God’s character.  One whispers that we are strong and God is unnecessary; the other hisses that we are weak and God is unreliable.  Both result in a fixation on controlling the future through our own efforts.  

Don’t get me wrong—it’s certainly not sinful to be prepared, and having Christ-centered goals is commendable.  The problem arises not when we thoughtfully contemplate our stewardship over the time God has given us but when we begin to play God, as though by our efforts and strategizing we become the captain of our own destiny.  James addressed this problem in his epistle:  “You do not know what tomorrow will bring.  What is your life?  For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.  Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that’” (James 4:14-15 ESV).  The solution, according to James, is not to waft aimlessly through life. Instead, we must relinquish both a white-knuckled need to plan and a staunch refusal to face our inadequacy, trading both for an intimate relationship with the God Who loves us.  

Especially in the autumn, when dusk is stronger than daylight and the song of the year is dwindling to a much slower cadence, the ache to know the future deepens.  Another year has slipped away and a new one is peeking over the horizon, and perhaps this is why the persimmons seem so alluring as they swing from the silver-barked branches.  But persimmons are no wiser than people, and we people are amazingly shortsighted when it comes to scanning the vistas of our lives.  The only way to make peace with the finiteness of our knowledge is to fully accept that we don’t know the future—neither the good nor the bad.  Allow that understanding to sink into your soul.  When he was tending his sheep and speaking God’s Word, Abel had no idea he would be murdered by his own brother.  On the other hand, when he was forgotten in the fields, overlooked by his father and rejected by his brothers, David had no idea he would one day be the king of Israel.  God is constantly writing unpredictable plot twists in the stories of His children’s lives.  It is not up to us to anticipate His next move; instead, it is our privilege to rest in His promises and to trust that in the hands of our divine Author, our story will be written just as He desires. 

Did you enjoy this post? What are some ways you’ve seen God write your future even in anxious or unsettled times? Let me know in the comments!

Also, BIG NEWS: there’s an upcoming blog post that is a special surprise I can’t wait to share with you! Don’t miss this “mystery post,” releasing on December 1!