Outlook Not So Good

I remember as a child frequently walking the two blocks to my friend Amber's house where our Saturday afternoons were swallowed up by playing house, school, "Guess Who", all sorts of imagination games, and driving her grandma crazy. Sometimes, usually toward the end of the afternoon, we would run out of things to play so we would pull out the (drumroll please) Magic 8 Ball. The questions we asked it were so silly. "Is so and so the cutest boy in our class?" "Will I get an A on my next test?" Many times the answer was very straightforward. "Yes." or "No." However, the phrase "outlook not so good" would occassionally make its way to the surface. Normally we would just reask the question without even a thought to the meaning of that phrase.

Fifteen years later, that phrase continues to show its face. It smiled in on me not all that long ago when I was lying in bed asking God a whole series of questions about my future (mostly in the job world). This time my questions not so silly. "Will I have a job?" "Will I be a teacher?" "Should I be pursuing something else?" Just as I finished my slew of questions, "Outlook not so good" popped into my head. I almost laughed out loud. Even though I was talking to God, there is no way that is what he was replying to me. For real, when you are walking with God how can the outlook NOT be good? The situation may not be good. MY situation has been hard and scary and has contained a lot of unknowns. But the outlook has never been bad. The Lord has promised to take care of me and He has been MORE than faithful in His promise this past year. YEAH!