Today’s prompt is “Hold.”

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I hold my future in my heart. So do you. Most people seem to think that we have no control over our future. They think that either God or something called Fate are the powers that determine what our lives will be like as the years go by. But, according to God’s Word, neither He nor Fate are in control.

To begin with, let’s get the idea of Fate out of the way. God’s Word — which is the record of absolute Truth — tells us that there are only two powers working in this universe. There is evil, and the leading characters in that side of the story are Satan and his hoard of demonic spirits. But he is the lesser power. And the truth is that he actually has no power of his own. No power emanates from him, nor can he create any. But as a spirit-being with eons of experience in that realm, he knows how to use spiritual power to try to get what he wants. But man is the one who has opened the door — and holds it open — for the devil and his forces to operate in this earth.

The other power, the higher power, is our Lord, whose forces are led by Jesus. His power emanates from His own being, and He can generate as much of it as He finds necessary at any given time. However, according to His Word, we are the ones who open the door to Him as well, to allow Him to operate in the earth.

God put Himself in covenant with the human race, and in doing so, He — by His own sovereign will — locked Himself into conducting His own behavior according to the principles laid down in the covenant. That’s why He urges us continually in His Word to pray, pray, pray — and to speak only His Word in every situation. Because when we pray, we open the door to His involvement in our lives, and when we speak His Word we do the same. Even His angels are ordered to obey His Word, and I do believe that, often, they are standing by, wanting to help us in our problems, but they cannot act on our moaning, groaning, complaining, and fear-filled crying. They are waiting to hear us speak the Words of the Creator of the universe instead, and then they can go to work.

God tells us in many places in His Word that He often does not get His own way in the lives of men. He doesn’t just arbitrarily step in and make something happen because it’s what He wants. Most people — even most Christians — believe He does. But we need to stop believing whatever we have been taught by other lesser minds and start believing God Himself.

This article is not meant to be a bonafide Bible lesson, so I am not going to cite loads of scripture references here, but I will throw in two of the best examples of the point I’m making: 1. God tells us clearly that it is His will for everyone to come the Jesus and receive salvation. But He also tells us that everyone will not do it. 2. When Jesus walked the earth, He wanted to work miracles for the people in His own home town the way He did for so many others. But His Word clearly says that He could not do any mighty miracles there. It does not say that He would not, but that He could not. And the only reason was because the people did not believe. They shut the door on His miracle-working power, so they limited what He could do. They prohibited the God of the universe from getting things His way. (You’ll find this event referenced in more than one Gospel account.)

So who really does hold our future? We do. Proverbs 18:21 even tells us that death and life are in the power of our own tongues. Most people do not understand that fact at all. But the lack of understanding is due to a lack of believing. God tells us that the beginning of understanding and wisdom is the “fear of God.” That kind of “fear” refers to reverence and obedience — meaning that we believe Him.  If we truly believed what He says — that death and life are in the power of our tongues — we would begin to understand how that fact is so. Believing God has to come before understanding.

Not only are death and life within our power, but our future — the very boundaries of our lives — are within our own hearts. Again, let’s go to Proverbs briefly. This time let’s look at Proverbs 4:23. This verse, in several translations, says we should guard our hearts with all diligence because the issues of life proceed from our hearts. The word issues is a correct translation here, but the original Hebrew word meant more than just what we think of when we see that word in English. The Hebrew word says that the issues and the borders of our lives flow out of our hearts.

What are the borders of our lives? They are the boundaries — boundaries that tell enemy forces how far they can come before they have to back off and leave us alone — and boundaries that tell us how far we can go in reaching for goals and striving to become what it is in our hearts to become. You see, according to God, what we believe for in our hearts — and what we are willing to throw our whole hearts into — determine how far we will go. And what we believe in our hearts also determines how far we will let the enemy come to hold us back.

A successful trapeze artists from a couple generations ago has been made rather famous from a story told about him, concerning his training methods for proteges in his field. At one point, he was training a student who suddenly froze in fear and exclaimed that he just could not throw himself out there on the bar and perform successfully. The veteran trapeze artists is quoted as telling him, “Yes, you can, Son. Just throw your heart over the bar, and your body will follow.”

We hold our future in our own hearts. So we need to take God at His word and then follow the advice of that veteran performer. We need to find out from God’s Word what wonderful things are available to us for our future. There’s really no limit.  Then we need to believe that Word and throw our hearts over the bar and into the future that we want.

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