What Will Make Your Future Great?

I have no idea what 2025 holds for you.  It may be a year where you reach your goals.  If so, it will have more to do with your attitude than your circumstances.  Success in life is mostly about our perspective on what’s possible or impossible and what’s valuable to us.

The economy might tank. Your church might struggle. Your family may face challenges. Yet, in all these and other challenges, our approach to them can be the difference between sorrow or joy. The most important question you’ll face in 2025 is:  Will you look at the year with faith towards God and his abilities or be intimidated by the fear of failure? The choice, as always, is in your hands.

The Israelites had a big choice in Numbers 13, a story detailing how Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt where they had been slaves for 400 years. They had already spent two years in the desert on their journey to the Promised Land when Moses sent 12 spies, one from each of the tribes, into the Promised Land to see what was in store for the Israelite’s when they arrived.

Ten of the spies came back with reports of fear and terror. They told the Israelites the land was full of enemies that the Israelite’s couldn’t beat.  In reality, the Promised Land was as incredible as God had promised, truly a land “flowing with milk and honey” yet they couldn’t see past their doubts and fears.

Only Joshua and Caleb returned with reports of faith. The Israelites chose to believe the majority of the spies rather than the two who looked at their future in faith. Because of their responses, Joshua and Caleb were the only ones of their generation who were able to enter the Promised Land in spite of God promising them this new future. The rest of Israel would die in the wilderness in spite of God’s promise to them.

Just like the Israelites, you and I are heading into the unknown in 2025. None of us truly knows what to expect in 2025. We can either look at the future in faith or in fear.  We can live in doubt or in our belief in a Good God who doesn’t lie. Our perspective of whether God can or will provide what we need is often a very clouded subject because we often can see what make things happen in life. We, in truth, believe more in luck than in God.

Maybe your church seems to be stalling. You’re wondering if you’ll ever grow again. You’d never say out loud that you’re afraid of what 2025 may hold for your church, but you clearly are afraid. What do you do? Can we see the future form God’s perspective or just our narrow short sighted human one?

Maybe you have people in your life that you love dearly who are constantly making bad choices and walking further and further away from God. You’ve been praying for them for years, and you’re afraid they’ll never turn to God. Do you give up praying or do you press into God in prayer until things do change?

Maybe your marriage is falling apart. You don’t dare let anyone know, but you’re afraid divorce could be around the corner. The more you look at the magnitude of the problems between you and you spouse the more you get convinced it’s impossible to fix things.  Divorce seems like the only “Logical” solution unless you let God open your eyes to other possibilities.

Now, in 2025, you’ve got the same choice that the Israelite’s had—look at your future in faith or in fear.

When we look at our future through the eyes of fear, we will experience the following outcomes:

1. We’ll get stressed by conflicting information.

When the ten fearful spies shared their report, their story was mixed. “We entered the land you sent us to explore, and it is indeed a bountiful country—a land flowing with milk and honey . . . But the people living there are powerful, and their towns are large and fortified” (Numbers 13:27-28 NLT). The Promised Land had all the food the Israelite’s could want, but it was also full of large, fortified cities. Fear puts the “but” in the middle of the report. If God is going to use you, you need to get rid of the excuses and escape hatches you have created.

2. We develop a scarcity mindset.

A scarcity mindset happens when we focus on what we don’t have. In verse 27, the ten fearful spies note that the Promised Land has no room for them. The Amalekites, Hittites, Jebusites, Amorites, and Canaanites all had places to live in the Promised Land. There was nothing left for the Israelites.

When you look at the world through eyes of fear, that’s what the future looks like. In seminary, I remember hearing pastors tell me that all the good churches were taken. Students who looked at their future through the eyes of faith saw something different: “Look at all the places that need a new church plant.” That’s an entirely different and much more faith-filled response that God will move in.

3. We fulfill our own self-defeating prophecies.

When the fear-filled spies returned, saying Israel couldn’t overcome the people already in the land (Numbers 13:31), they were right. If they didn’t believe in what God could do through them, they were already beat. The same is true for us. When we don’t believe we’ll stand a chance against all the problems we’ll face in the future, we guarantee that outcome.

4. We spread our negativity to everyone else.

Your fear impacts more than just yourself, particularly when you’re a church leader. The Israelites believed in the fearful report of the first spies. Your family, your congregation, and your community will do the same. When you focus on your fear, you’ll lead others to move away from the perspective of faith and their trust in God.

5. We see ourselves as inadequate.

Notice the overwhelming ways the Israelites described the people who lived in the Promised Land. “All the people we saw are very tall. . . . We felt like grasshoppers, and we looked like grasshoppers to them” (Numbers 13:32-33 NCV). When we’re afraid, we tend to act as the Israelites did. We project our fears upon others. The Israelites didn’t know how they looked to the Canaanites. They felt inadequate and small, so they assumed the Canaanites felt the same way.

6. We make ourselves miserable.

The Israelites threw a pity party. They cried, complained, and second-guessed everything. There is nothing enjoyable about living in fear. When you throw a pity party, you miss out on everything God wants to give you in the Promised Land.

None of that needs to be your story in 2025. Instead, you can choose to be like Joshua and Caleb. You can look at your future in faith and not fear.

How do you get started? One step at a time. We defeat our fear with choices and actions that create movement. You can’t argue away your fears. You can’t discuss them away. But you can take a step against your fears in order to overcome them.

Make a faith commitment today to face your fears.

Questions:

1) Have you already started to be afraid of your tomorrow because of your yesterday? Jeremiah 29:11 is a word you need to receive today!

2) Have you let fear dominate you for too long? Fear is a bully that can be defeated but you are going to have to face fear to find victory.

Pastor Dale