Flash Forward

I was lent the DVD series ‘Flash Forward’ recently; we must have missed it when it was first broadcast as we were living abroad at the time. After just 1 episode I was hooked and I’ve realised my bed time has been getting later and later as I stay up late to watch just one more episode.

The series is based on the lives of several people following a mysterious event that causes nearly everyone on the planet to simultaneously lose consciousness for two minutes and seventeen seconds on October 6, 2009. During this "blackout", people see what appear to be visions of their lives six months later on April 29, 2010.

 For some people their vision is a wonderful blessing, they see themselves getting married on a beach or re-united with a long lost daughter. They have something to look forward to as they’ve seen their dreams will come true.  For others the future is not so welcome, they see themselves drinking heavily or fighting with someone, this future flash forward haunts them – what will happen to them in the next six months for such a horror to occur?

The question the programme poses is: if you knew what your future was- would you try and change it, or can you change it? And if one person manages to make a change that leaves his ‘flash forward’ unfulfilled how does that affect other people’s future? The programme seriously messes with your head.

There’s another group of people who during the blackout did not see anything – just blackness, emptiness, nothing.   They conclude from this that their lack of vision must mean they will not be alive in six months time. If you knew you would die in the next six months would you try to prevent it or just accept it? They call themselves ‘ghosts’ as they are living, but they know they will soon be dead. Some of them start taking extraordinary risks – if they are going to die anyway – why not?   Again the question – can the future be changed?  

I was in the pub with a friend last night who used the turn of phrase several times, ‘It wasn’t meant to be’; perhaps an indication of a deep held belief that our lives and choices are mapped out for us – our future is decided, it can’t be changed.  People express this sentiment all the time perhaps without realising it,’ It wasn’t the right thing’, ‘it wasn’t the right time’, ‘it wasn’t meant to be’.

Where does faith come into this?

Do we believe that God has our lives mapped out – a road for us to walk down, we just have to find the right road?   God has all our 90 or so years on this planet marked out for us?  Or do we believe that we make our own decisions and that our future depends on the decisions we have made in life?

If we believe God has everything planned for us then we’re let off the hook a bit; any consequences of our actions are not really our fault- there are all part of God’s plan.  The bad things that happen to us are also part of God’s plan. We don’t understand but at some stage we’ll understand why certain things have happened.   I don’t subscribe to this point of view.

If we believe that we are responsible for our own choices and decisions and that we have to live with the consequences of our actions we may end up with a more mature attitude to faith.  God is part of our thinking and decision making; we ask him for guidance, we trust his direction; we form our views and opinions based on what we know of God from his word, the Bible, and our own relationship with him.

If you had a vision of your future and you didn’t like it would you try and change it?