With Christ Into The Future!

The phrase above was used as the motto for a Congress for The Salvation Army and is one which I am particularly fond. I have a paperweight at home with the logo on it, as pictured. I did have the logo on a tee-shirt with a starfield as a background and used to wear it at science fiction conventions when I went to them, but it fell to bits with overuse!

Much science fiction is of course set in the future - some visions depict a bright future, some a bleak one. The sixth Star Trek film made particular reference to the uncertainty of the future, calling it 'The Undiscovered Country'. This is a reference to Hamlet (Act III Scene I), and is used in the film to refer to a future where all races coexist in peace.

I mention this in this blog particularly as many Salvationists are now pondering the proposed Changes in Appointment for Salvation Army centres, announced officially today. These changes not only affect the officers that are mentioned in this document, but many others in our organisation. All of us need to work together, to walk together into an uncertain future - the undiscovered country.

I'm sure there will be many taking stock of where they are in their own Christian walk at times of change like this, and the words below are the ones that I keep close to me. They might help you too...

I don't know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future.

All my past is known to thee,
Lord, let me come.
All my future thou canst see,
Lord, let me come.
Take me, I can trust my all
In thy hands whate’er befall,
Then no tempest shall appal,
Lord, let me come.

SASB 285, verse 3 (Herbert Howard Booth)