Ahhh…new year, clean slate, new beginning. Twelve months of potential.

But not everyone is optimistic about the future. Some say that if the past is any indication, we’re in for big trouble in 2016.

Newspaper headlines from 2015 brimmed with accounts of disasters. We witnessed man-made disasters and natural disasters. Weather occurrences ushered in record heat waves and mudslides. Middle East tensions continue to escalate. The U.S. domestic picture is gloomy, too. U.S. politics have become more divisive than ever. We have an unwieldy national deficit. Many are still recovering from the foreclosure crisis. Racial tensions appear to be getting worse instead of better.

All in all, the baby new year has its work cut out for it.

With all the uncertainty, it’s no wonder there is a growing interest in end-times prophecy and Bible studies of the Book of Revelation. People want to know, What does the future hold?

A study of the end-times will give us a broad-brush picture of events, but day-to-day details remain out of reach. Still, God does not want His children to obsess about the future. He wants us to live in such a way that we will be prepared for the future by having dealt with our past. The only way to do this is to accept that our sin has been paid for by the one sacrifice God deems suitable: His Son, Jesus Christ. If we don’t, the future will continue to be a source of fear.

For Christians, however, fear is cancelled out by faith. Faith in the One we belong to. Faith in the One who laid down His life for us. Faith in the One who not only created this world, He continues to sovereignly sustain it.

No one knows the details of what the future holds.
But we do know who holds the future…and who holds us.
And that’s enough for me.

What helps you face the uncertainty of 2016?