Yearly Predictions Do Not Change Anything

Ed and Ruby are ending 2019 and beginning 2020 in Edmonton with their family this holiday season. My old neighbor in Saskatchewan has limited himself to three predictions for 2020. He has decided to concentrate on fewer predictions for the coming year, so when they come true, he will gain more respect.

I tried to tell Ed that whether his predictions turn out to be true or false in the next year, that they will likely be ignored. In 1909, Nikola Tesla suggested, in an interview with the New York Times newspaper, that someday people would be walking around with phones in their pockets. Does it matter that in 2020 folks will be walking around with cell phones in their pockets and hands? With their phones in their hands, strangers hear their conversations all too clearly.

Every year folks always forget who said what. People waiting for an organ transplant do not care that way back in 1660, Robert Boyle predicted that in the future diseases would be cured by organ transplantation.

People have been talking about Climate Change for ages. In 1917 Alexander Graham Bell warned in a National Geographic article that the unchecked burning of fossil fuels would result in a greenhouse effect on the earth with it becoming a hothouse. He suggested solar power from sunlight as an alternate energy source to fossil fuels. We still have folks in 2020 dismissing the harm of using fossil fuels and the effects of Climate Change on our world.

Every year, life happens. Some events like birth and death can change our lives significantly. Ed predicts three events in 2020 to watch for, the first being an agricultural trade deal with China. Second, Canada takes Britain’s place in the European Common Market. Third, a massive earthquake will hit California, Oregon, and the Washington States, with a fault line from San Francisco to Seattle. I hope Ed’s third prediction is not correct as that earthquake is a way too close to British Columbia.

I look for predictions for the coming year that reflect both hope and reality. As the Bible says, “Anyone who is among the living has hope – even a live dog is better off than a dead lion.”  Each year God provides us with our daily bread. Not only does God give us income and possessions but the ability to enjoy them and accept our lot in life. God gives us gladness of heart and peace of mind.

People like to predict and speculate about the future, but only God knows the future, and no one can say what is to come. The Bible affirms that every year will have times that are both high and low. The scriptures counsel: “When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other. Therefore, a man cannot discover anything about his future.”

Many spend each year toiling to get ahead and to have more wealth or possessions. They forget that babies come naked from their mothers’ wombs. As we are born, so we depart carrying nothing with us. Every rear, there is hope for the living in Jesus Christ. We know we will die but will come to life again as Jesus did.

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