Though I Cannot See All the Way…

“If someone were to ask you to go to a moving picture of things that are going to happen . . . would you go?” asked William Frederick Bigelow. “Would you be willing to risk seeing the things [of the future] . . .?¹ ‘Toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing, onward through life he goes’²⎯that is the biography of most men, and few would change it if they could, or ask to look forward to the scenes of rejoicing or sorrowing.”¹

“What the ultimate significance of life is, I do not know,” said Dr. Arthur Morgan. “It seems to be an adventure, and that means risk, with uncertainty as to failure or success. I do not know how great is the risk . . . It has been a long struggle for humanity to come thus far . . . I must not fail . . . Though I cannot see all the way.”³

This is the substance, the spirit of facing the future: faith, hope, happiness, patience, preparation; a willingness to trust and to take the next step without asking “to see the distant scene.”

Some have seen something of the future. To the prophets there has been some opening of it. But the usual and intended plan is to face our problems and opportunities a day at a time, an hour at a time, with an awareness that it was a kind of loving Father who gave us the principles, the commandments, the laws of conduct, of causes and consequences, with faith to move into the future without seeing all its scenes, but with assurance as to eternal certainties, as to the purpose and importance of doing and enduring. And we may know that we are in good hands, and should keep prayerfully close to Him who gave us life, and loved ones and all our opportunities, and the assurance that happiness is part of life’s purpose.