No One Can Predict The Future

Another year has passed and the earth still keeps turning.

The economy didn’t collapse, though according to some forecasters it is just a matter of time. There were a few who said the world would end, at least for some, in 2011, but that didn’t pan out either as most of us are still here.

There are is large contingent of people who believe the Mayans, a society that went away several hundred years ago, figured out the world would end December 21, 2012. All of that is hard to say, weathermen can’t predict if it will rain three days from now, yet Al Gore knows the planet will be uninhabitable in 100 years — maybe ol’ Al is part Mayan and has the ability to see into the distant future.

There are as many predictions as there are people in the world. As individuals, the Bible tells that no one is guaranteed tomorrow, so predictions are nothing more than inherent wastes of time.

It’s much like gambling, of any type. Look at a craps table, a person places a bet a number will or will not be rolled by the dice. It’s a prediction. So is having money in a stock market, most are predicting the stocks will increase in value, they are making a prediction.

People make predictions every day, make plans for their lives and map out their future; all that is great, but many of them have nothing for today. They are not prepared for what life has for them in the present, yet they know what will happen in the future — if only life was that certain.

For many people across the country, and the world, 2011 will not be a year they will ever forget. For people in Alabama and Missouri they are still digging out from the late spring tornadoes. Hundreds of people were killed; thousands are still without homes; businesses and livelihoods were destroyed. Most people could not have predicted such a tragedy could have befallen them.

Thousands of people in Japan were killed by a massive earthquake and resulting tsunami. For months afterwards the country struggled to avert a nuclear disaster, losing billions of dollars in the process. It was an event nobody could have predicted.

Here at home a drought held Texas in a ruthless death grip. Farmers and ranchers lost nearly everything as they struggled to keep the operations afloat in the midst of the ongoing disaster.

Add to the drought the fires that scorched millions of acres of Texas countryside. Thousands of homes, just around the Central Texas city of Bastrop, were destroyed by a ravenous blaze. That was something most folks around here would not have predicted.

Out of all this tragedy there are lessons to be learned. No one can actually predict the future, in spite of what some followers of Nostradamus believe. The best anyone can do is prepare. Let those be the lessons we take away from a tragic 2011 as we look forward to a new year in 2012.