Invent the Future

Invent the Future by Cindy Gallop



A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. – Ralph Waldo Emerson


My favorite quote of all time is Alan Kay: ‘In order to predict the future, you have to invent it.’ I am all about inventing the future. Decide what you want the future to be and make it happen. Because you can. Write about your future now.
 
Last week I attended a two day conference called the Story Line Conference put on by Donald Miller.  Don is a Christian writer of the titles, Blue Like Jazz, To Own a Dragon and A Million Miles and A Thousand Years, to name a few.  Don's conference was about having your life become a better story.  One of his theological beliefs is that God gives man shared agency in his own life.

I agree with this theological point.  Now certainly, for some people God has had specific plans for their lives.  Mary the mother of Jesus had a specific plan for her life and God intervened in a way that changed it forever.  It's also safe to say that Mary did not dream up the idea to be a virgin and get pregnant with the son of God.  That happened to her in a fateful way.

But it is also common sense to believe that man can choose to do or not to do and realize the consequences.  We also have the parable of the talents, where God gave talents to three different men and they did different things with the talents they were given.  So with this shared agency that I believe we have with God, part of having a great story is to want something that is not.  That is what creating is all about, to make something true, that today is not true.  I might want to own a new car.  Today I do not own a new car, but I can own one tomorrow if I want one, have the resources to pay for it, etc.

So I am on a board of an organization.  We have talked about wanting to grow the the organization for a long time and  I have been on the board for almost 4 years now.  This organization has not grown for pretty much the last 10 years.  We are starting to see opportunities to grow, but they do not come without risk, they do not come without entering into the unknown.  Much like having a child is a bloody mess, giving birth to any new thing has similarities to a birth.  It is messy. 

So as we start to feel the mess, I am seeing people wanting to back away.  I am seeing people wanting to have the growth more orderly, more controlled, less messy.  People are not liking that stress is involved, that they feel too busy, and are afraid that their efforts will not be enough.  But stress and busy provide opportunity for work.  Work provides opportunity for growth and for fruit.  To spend oneself for a worthy cause can be fulfilling!  One scripture that I love is, "by the sweat of your brow the earth will yield its fruit".  Nothing is more satisfying than fruit that God provides to us.

I am also seeing people say, we will have to see what the Holy Spirit says.  God will lead us and direct us on this issue.  That comment is why I am telling this story today.  How do we know what God says?  How do we detect his leading?  I wonder if we only want what God wants, and we think we have to be spiritually aware to hear the Holy Spirit, and we have been trying to be spiritually aware, but it is hard and we think there is a separation between us and God, where God is outside of us, I wonder if we think this way, will we find we get nothing, because we did not recognize that God was inside of us, in the new creation he put within us.  Not recognizing where God was, we dismissed the things we found in our own hearts, just like Emerson's quote above and find at the end of our lives that we did very little.

At the storyline conference we were asked the question, what do you want?  With shared agency with God, God might be asking us, "what do you want?"  Is it in God's plans for the organization to grow or not grow?  Maybe God shares that decision with us.  Maybe the organization has not grown because we did not want it to grow or were afraid of growth and backed away.  Maybe if we want the organization to grow and are willing to dare greatly it will. 

Maybe we have shared agency with God, and can invent the future.  I know I want this organization that I am a part of to grow, and I hope the team I am on is willing to enter the mess to see it happen.