So, have you ever been “back to the future?”  I’m guessing many of us might have seen the movie that came out some number of years ago featuring this title.  But my question has more to do with discovering a way that we can walk boldly with great confidence and assurance into an uncertain future.  For sure, we’ve all heard the life cliché that “hindsight is 20/20” but I wonder just how many of us, given a choice, would rather have “20/20 foresight.”  It’s true that much of life is seen with great clarity and understanding from the vantage point of the rearview mirror but is there a way to look out the front window of life with the same sense of certainty?  My sense is it has something to do with looking back to see future. A friend of mine paints the principle of this picture so well by using the illustration of rowing a boat.  He points to the fact that the way you row a boat on a straight line into the uncertain waters in front of you is to fix your eyes on a marker in the distance behind you.  If your eyes stray from that marker then you’re prone to get off course.  Think about it. Have you ever tried to row a boat straight ahead by looking over your shoulder?  I have and it doesn’t work. So what does this illustration mean for us?  I guess it encourages us to see to it that we orient the foundation of our lives around those very truths and principles that we know will prevail over time.  Can you think of a few?  Several come to my mind; be of good character, maintain the highest degrees of integrity, be a cheerful giver, do the right thing, steady plotting, love one another.  The good news is that no matter where we find ourselves in life we can reorient ourselves around these types of “markers,” the pillars of assurance vital to journeying into the future.  And as we begin to live out these principles and truths we will begin to set a new course of living. Can you just imagine the life of freedom that would be ours if we simply fix our eyes on the “marker” of God’s faithfulness past?  Free to be certain in the midst of uncertainty, free to be at rest in the midst of not knowing the whole mystery of life, free to live life not presuming upon the future but living life with great expectancy and joy.  Perhaps even being free to be you!  Peace.