He sees your tomorrow
When we were children, sooner or later someone would always ask us the same question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” And we would answer with everything our imagination could conceive. Perhaps we wanted to become doctors, football players, teachers, pilots, or maybe something we had seen on television. And there is nothing wrong with dreaming, having hopes for the future, or working toward something we believe is good. But then we grow up, and that little bubble of imagination begins to burst, because we discover that life is much more complicated than we imagined. We make plans, and then something happens that changes everything. Perhaps you know someone in your family who spent years working toward a certain dream, and then God led them in a completely different direction. And eventually we discover something that is difficult to accept: we can make plans for our lives, but we cannot control our lives.
This can frighten us, because we want to know what tomorrow will bring. We want to know that there will be enough, that our plans will work out, that what we have built will remain. And when we cannot see these things, anxiety begins to take hold of us. We begin to live as though everything depends on our ability to hold our lives together. But Jesus says, “Do not be anxious about your life.” He invites us to look at the birds of the air and the flowers of the field. They do not control tomorrow, and yet their Father takes care of them. And then He gives us this beautiful promise: “Your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.”
But perhaps these words are hardest to believe precisely when we have reached the end of what we are able to see. And that is exactly where we meet the widow in the First Book of Kings. Elijah comes to her and asks her for bread, and she answers, “I have nothing baked, but only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug.” And then she says something heartbreaking: “I am gathering a couple of sticks, that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son; that we may eat it and then die.”
This woman has stopped imagining tomorrow. For her, there is no future beyond that last piece of bread. She has reached the point where she thinks, “This is all we have left. We will eat this, and then we will die.” And perhaps, in one way or another, some of us have known that feeling. Perhaps we have reached moments when the future seemed so dark that we thought, “I don’t know how I can go on.” Perhaps we have even found ourselves thinking, “It would be better if I were not here.”
The Bible, however, does not present the widow as someone who is rebuked for having reached that point. Elijah does not stand before her to condemn her. He does not say, “How dare you speak like that? Where is your faith?” Instead, God meets her right in the middle of her desperation and speaks His promise to her: “Do not fear.” This is important, because sometimes we Christians can imagine that God is simply waiting to rebuke us every time we are weak. We think that if we are anxious, discouraged, exhausted, or unable to see a future anymore, then God must be disappointed with us. But the God revealed to us in Scripture is not a cruel master waiting for us to fail. He is our Father. He knows our weakness. He knows how easily we become afraid. He knows that without Him we have nothing.
The widow had almost exhausted everything she possessed, but God had not abandoned her. And perhaps there is a lesson here for us when we find ourselves speaking words of despair. We should not make peace with those words. We should not encourage ourselves or others to remain there. When we realize that despair is taking hold of us, we should bring it before God. We can say, “Lord, forgive me for losing sight of You. Forgive me for believing that my situation was greater than Your faithfulness. Forgive me for trying to carry tomorrow on my shoulders when You have given me only today.”
And what happens when we confess our sin? God does not reject us. Because our security is not based on how strong our faith is. Our security is in Christ. We have been bought with His blood. Christ has already carried our sin to the cross. He has already suffered the punishment that our sin deserved. Therefore, when we come to Him confessing our fear, our anxiety, our despair, and our lack of trust, we are not coming before an angry stranger. We are coming before the Father who gave His Son for us.
This does not mean that we should simply continue speaking despairingly about ourselves. It does not mean that despair becomes acceptable because “God understands.” On the contrary, precisely because God understands us and has forgiven us in Christ, we can turn away from those thoughts and return to His promise. We can say, “Lord, I cannot see tomorrow, but You can. I cannot provide everything I need for myself, but You can. I cannot control my life, but You are my Father.”
And here we return to the words of Jesus: “Your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.” Notice that Jesus does not promise that we will always have everything we want. He promises that our Father knows what we need. The widow did not receive enough flour to last her entire life all at once. She received what was necessary. The flour did not suddenly become a warehouse. The oil did not become an endless river. God simply sustained her.
Sometimes that is how God works in our lives as well. We want Him to show us the whole road, but He gives us enough light for the next step. We want to have today the grace we will need for tomorrow, but He gives us grace for today. We want to know how everything will turn out, but God says to us, “Trust Me.”
And this is where Paul’s words to the Galatians also become important: “Let us not grow weary of doing good.” Paul speaks about sowing and reaping. There is something we are called to cultivate. We are called to walk according to the Spirit. We are called to do good. We are called to bear one another’s burdens. We are called to continue faithfully even when we do not immediately see the results. But we must remember who is in control of the harvest. We sow; God makes things grow. We work faithfully; God holds the future in His hands. We cultivate what He has placed before us; God decides what will come from all of it.
And this is precisely where we must place our dreams and our plans. Dreaming is not wrong. Working toward something is not wrong. But as Christians, we must be willing to say, “Lord, this is what I desire, but Your will is greater than mine.” Because we do not know what God will do with our lives. The direction we imagine today may not be the direction He gives us tomorrow. And when He changes our plans, perhaps we will not understand it immediately.
But we can trust Him. Because our lives are not guided by chance. They are in the hands of the Father who knows what we need. And perhaps this is one of the great lessons of growing up. When we were children, we imagined that the future was something we would create ourselves. As Christians, we learn that the future is something we receive from the hands of God.
Therefore, perhaps today you find yourself like that widow, looking at what remains and thinking, “There is nothing left. I cannot see how tomorrow can possibly come.” Perhaps you have even reached the point of thinking that it would be easier to die than to continue living. If you have been in that place, hear the Word of God today: you are not abandoned. Your Father has not forgotten you. He knows your weakness and He does not turn away from you.
Bring that despair before Him. Confess it. Ask for His forgiveness. And hear once again the promise of the Gospel: in Christ you are forgiven. You have been bought with His blood. Your life does not belong to despair. It belongs to Christ. And therefore, do not stop cultivating what God has placed before you. Walk according to the Spirit. Do good. Bear one another’s burdens. Sow even when you cannot yet see the harvest. Trust God with what you cannot control.
The widow thought she was preparing her last meal. She thought there would be no tomorrow. But God had already prepared a future that she could not see. And perhaps this is also what it means to have faith. It does not mean knowing what tomorrow will bring, but knowing who will be there when tomorrow comes. Your Father knows what you need. And when your strength fails, remember that Christ does not fail. When your faith is weak, Christ remains faithful. When you cannot see tomorrow, Christ is already there. We do not know what tomorrow holds. But we know whose hands hold tomorrow. And that is enough.