Note: On Tuesdays and some Sundays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.
Predictability.
We might say we like uncertainty, thrive on the fact that our lives are never the same one day to the next. But uncertainty drains us. It causes us to always think ahead, always wonder about what is coming and how we’ll deal with it. We sacrifice the 
present because we are focused on what might happen in the future. In the same way, in today’s Gospel reading from Luke 21, those around the temple press Jesus for the timing of the end, and what signs they will see. He counsels them against believing anyone who claims to be able to forecast these things.
When we believe in the Lord’s goodness, the uncertainty and anxiety go away or are at least reduced. Sure, there will be bumps in the road ahead, some of them very serious and difficult—chronic illness, the loss of a loved one, persecution and betrayal and abandonment. But those crosses are easier to bear when we are able to remember that we do know how the story ends. We have the ultimate in predictability. The signs are all there when we believe in Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection and the promise of eternal life. There’s no need to concern ourselves with when it will happen; all we have to do is believe that it will and strive to live as He desires today, confident in His promise in the way the story will end.
