Talatu teaches Primary Four at a mission school in Kaduna. She is the kind of teacher children remember: firm, funny, and impossible to fool. For eleven years her life had a steady rhythm. School runs in the morning, marking in the evening, church on Sunday, and once a month a visit to her mother in the village.
Then, in the space of six weeks, almost everything that had seemed fixed came loose. The construction firm her husband worked for lost its government contract and announced that it would be leaving the state at the end of the quarter. Nobody could tell him whether he would be transferred, retrenched or simply left waiting. The landlord sent word that he was selling the house and they would need to move within three months. And her mother, who had always been strong, was admitted to hospital with a heart condition the doctors were still trying to understand.
None of these things was yet a disaster. That was almost the hardest part. Her husband had not lost his job, not yet. They had not been thrown out of the house, not yet. Her mother had not died. Everything was hanging. She told me later that she could not picture next Christmas. She did not know which city they would be living in, which school her children would attend, or whether her mother would still be alive.
One morning, before the school run, she took an exercise book from the pile on her table, turned to the back page, and drew a line down the middle. At the top of the left column she wrote, What I do not know. At the top of the right column she wrote, What I know.
The left column filled up quickly. It took her much longer to begin the right.
When tomorrow will not come into focus
Uncertainty is its own kind of trial. When trouble has already arrived, you can at least see its shape. You know what you are facing, and you can begin to respond. Uncertainty is different. It is the fog before the road becomes visible. You do not know whether the thing you fear will happen, and so the mind runs ahead and rehearses every possible outcome, usually the worst ones, at three in the morning.
Many believers feel guilty about this. They think that if their faith were stronger, they would feel no unease when the future is unclear. But uncertainty is part of being a creature. James reminds us, “ye know not what shall be on the morrow” (James 4:14). Proverbs says, “Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth” (Proverbs 27:1). Not knowing the future is the ordinary condition of every human being who is not God.
We will all face uncertainty. The question is what we will lean on when we cannot see. And the Bible’s answer is the faithfulness of God.
That word needs careful handling, because it is often misunderstood. When we say that God is faithful, we may quietly mean that He will make things turn out the way we hope. The job will be saved. The house will be found. The mother will recover. Scripture means something both deeper and more secure: God will always be true to His own character and to His word. He will be what He has said He is. He will do what He has said He will do. That is the ground on which faith can stand while tomorrow is still out of focus.
Remembering in the ruins
The book of Lamentations was written in the wreckage of Jerusalem after the Babylonians destroyed it. The temple had been burned. The city walls were broken down. Many people had been killed or taken into exile. The writer, traditionally understood to be Jeremiah, describes starving children, weeping mothers and empty streets. In the middle of that desolation he writes:
Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me. This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD .
Look at where the passage begins. “Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.” Wormwood and gall are bitter plants. He is saying that his memories taste bitter. “My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.” He keeps going over it. He cannot stop thinking about what has happened.
Then he makes a choice. “This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.” The same mind that had been replaying the bitterness now deliberately recalls something else. And what he recalls is the steadfast mercy of God: “It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.”
The Hebrew word for faithfulness is emunah. It comes from a root that speaks of firmness and reliability, something that holds steady when weight is placed upon it. The same root gives us the word amen. When Jeremiah says, “great is thy faithfulness,” he is saying that God is utterly dependable. You can lean on Him and He will not give way.
Notice that God’s mercies are “new every morning.” New each day, like the manna in the wilderness, which came every morning and could not be hoarded. Israel never had a warehouse of food for forty years, only enough for today, given again tomorrow. In seasons of uncertainty we often want God to show us the whole year’s supply before we will rest. He offers us instead the mercy that is sufficient for this morning, and the promise that it will be there again tomorrow.
Then look at verses 25 and 26. “The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.” The word quietly is striking. Jeremiah is describing a waiting free of the frantic inner noise that uncertainty produces, though by no means a passive one. A quiet waiting is a waiting that trusts. It does not need to fill the silence with panic, because it knows who is coming.
Three young men and the words “but if not”
It is important to distinguish two things that are easily confused. One is confidence in God’s character. The other is certainty that events will follow the outcome we prefer.
Three young men in Babylon show us the difference. When Nebuchadnezzar threatened to throw them into the burning fiery furnace unless they bowed to his golden image, they answered: “our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up” (Daniel 3:17-18).
They were completely confident about God. He was able. He would deliver them, one way or another, from the king’s power. But they did not tie their obedience to a particular outcome. But if not. If God chose to let them die in the fire, they would still not bow. Their faith rested on who God is, not on a guarantee of rescue on their terms.
This is the sturdier kind of faith. Faith that depends on a particular result can be shattered when the result does not arrive. Faith that rests on God’s character can survive any result, because His character does not change with events. Paul says, “If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself” (2 Timothy 2:13). God’s faithfulness is rooted in His own nature. He cannot be anything other than faithful, because He cannot deny Himself.
So you may pray boldly for the outcome you desire. You should. Talatu prayed every night for her husband’s job, for a new house, for her mother’s healing. But you can also learn to say but if not without losing your footing. If the job ends, God remains faithful. If the house falls through, God remains faithful. That is not resignation. It is security.
Jesus Himself prayed this way. In Gethsemane, with the cross before Him, He asked plainly, “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” Then He added, “nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt” (Matthew 26:39). The Son did not hide what He desired, and He did not doubt the Father’s love. He placed His desire inside His trust. That is the shape of prayer in an uncertain season: an honest request, held within a deeper confidence.
“I will never leave thee”
The letter to the Hebrews was written to believers under pressure. Some had already lost property for their faith (Hebrews 10:34). Others were tempted to give up. Near the end of the letter, in a section of practical instruction, the writer says this:
Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.
The context is money. “Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have.” Conversation in the King James Version means your way of life, your conduct. The writer is speaking to people whose financial future was uncertain, and he tells them to be content. That sounds almost impossible until you see the reason he gives: “for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”
That promise is quoted from the Old Testament. Moses said it to Israel and to Joshua on the edge of the promised land, when they faced enemies they could not yet see (Deuteronomy 31:6-8). God said it directly to Joshua: “as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee” (Joshua 1:5). Now the writer to the Hebrews applies it to ordinary believers facing financial insecurity. The promise that sustained Joshua at the Jordan is the promise that sustains a family worrying about rent.
What does contentment look like when the future is uncertain? Hebrews still expects believers to work and to care for their households, so contentment cannot mean pretending that money is unimportant. It means refusing to let fear of lack turn into grasping. Uncertain seasons tempt us to compare ourselves endlessly with others, to take shortcuts we would normally refuse, to cling to every naira as though it were our only security, or to rush into a decision simply because waiting feels unbearable. The writer to the Hebrews answers all of that with a single reason. You already have the one thing that cannot be taken from you. He hath said, I will never leave thee. A family that knows this can still budget carefully, still look for work, still weigh the offer to relocate. But they can do it without the panic that makes people foolish.
In the Greek of Hebrews 13:5, the negatives are piled up in a way that English struggles to reproduce. The force is something like, “I will never, no, never leave you; I will never, no, never forsake you.” The old hymn “How Firm a Foundation” tries to capture it with the line, “I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.” This is a promise spoken with great emphasis.
Notice what the promise is. It is not I will always give you exactly what you want. It is I will never leave you. The security offered is His presence. And because of His presence, the believer can “boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.” That is a quotation from Psalm 118:6. The confidence is bold, and it rests entirely on knowing who will be there when events unfold.
PunchlineGod has not promised to show you the whole road. He has promised that He will never leave you on it.
Tomorrow belongs to your Father
Jesus spoke directly to anxiety about the future in the Sermon on the Mount. He told His listeners to look at the birds, which neither sow nor reap, “yet your heavenly Father feedeth them” (Matthew 6:26). He told them to consider the lilies, which “toil not, neither do they spin” and yet are clothed more gloriously than Solomon (Matthew 6:28-29). And then He drew His conclusion:
Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
The phrase “take no thought” can be misread. Jesus is not forbidding planning or responsible work. The Bible elsewhere commends the ant for gathering food in summer (Proverbs 6:6-8), and Jesus Himself spoke of the wisdom of counting the cost before building a tower (Luke 14:28). The Greek word behind take thought is merimnao, which describes anxious care, a mind divided and pulled in different directions by worry. Jesus forbids the worry, not the work.
His reasoning is gentle and logical. “For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.” Your Father already knows what you need. The Gentiles, people without knowledge of the true God, chase after these things as though everything depended on them. You have a Father.
Then comes the priority: “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” In a season of uncertainty, the temptation is to make the uncertain thing the centre of everything. Every thought, every prayer, every conversation revolves around the job, the house, the diagnosis. Jesus gently moves the centre. Seek first His kingdom. Put His rule and His righteousness at the centre of your life, and trust Him with the rest.
And finally: “Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Each day has its own load. Tomorrow will bring its own. Jesus gives you grace for this day, just as Jeremiah’s mercies were new each morning, and leaves tomorrow’s weight for tomorrow. Much of the exhaustion of uncertainty comes from trying to live in several imagined futures at once. Jesus invites you to come back to today.
Notice too the gentleness in His rebuke: “O ye of little faith” (Matthew 6:30). His tone is that of a teacher drawing anxious students back to the truth. If you struggle with worry, you are exactly the kind of person He was speaking to on that hillside.
Faithfulness as a reason for present obedience
NuggetGod’s faithfulness is a comfort, and it is also a reason to keep doing what is right today, even when tomorrow is unclear.
Abraham is the great example. “By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went” (Hebrews 11:8). He had no map, only a word from God. Uncertainty about the destination did not prevent him from taking the first step.
The psalmist puts it simply: “Trust in the LORD, and do good” (Psalm 37:3). Trust and good works belong together. When the future is uncertain, it is tempting to freeze, to stop investing in the present because you do not know whether it will last. But faithfulness to God usually looks very ordinary. Prepare the lesson. Mark the exercise books. Pay what you owe. Apply for the next position. Visit your mother. Make sensible plans for more than one possible outcome.
James adds the right attitude to all our planning. Instead of saying, “To day or to morrow we will go into such a city,” we should say, “If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that” (James 4:13, 15). Meant from the heart, those words honestly recognise that our plans sit under His authority. We plan, and we hold our plans with an open hand.
Talatu kept teaching. She later admitted that in the worst weeks it felt strange to stand in front of thirty children and explain long division while her own life was in pieces. But she discovered that the classroom became a kind of mercy. For six hours a day she had something faithful to do, and doing it reminded her that God was still at work in the ordinary.
Faithfulness as a reason for prayer
The psalms of David are full of uncertainty. He was hunted by Saul for years, never knowing which cave would be safe or which friend would betray him. In one of those psalms, he writes:
But I trusted in thee, O LORD : I said, Thou art my God. My times are in thy hand: deliver me from the hand of mine enemies, and from them that persecute me. Make thy face to shine upon thy servant: save me for thy mercies’ sake.
“My times are in thy hand.” The word times is plural. David does not only mean the length of his life. He means all the seasons and circumstances of it, the moments of danger and of safety, of waiting and of action. All of them are held in God’s hand. And because they are in His hand, David can pray: “deliver me ... Make thy face to shine upon thy servant: save me for thy mercies’ sake.”
PunchlineDavid’s trust in God’s sovereignty makes him ask more confidently. Because his times are in God’s hand, he brings his requests to the hand that holds them.
This is how God’s faithfulness shapes prayer in seasons of uncertainty. Paul says, “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God” (Philippians 4:6). Peter says, “Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you” (1 Peter 5:7). Every uncertain thing can become a specific request. Lord, the contract ends in March. Lord, we need a house near the children’s school. Lord, the doctors do not yet understand my mother’s heart. You are speaking to a faithful Father who holds your times.
And because you trust His character, you can pray with the freedom of but if not. You ask for what you desire. You leave the outcome with One who is wiser and kinder than you are.
If anxiety has grown so heavy that you cannot sleep, cannot eat, or cannot function in your daily responsibilities, please tell someone. Speak to your pastor and to a doctor. Persistent anxiety can have physical as well as spiritual dimensions, and receiving care for it is not a lack of faith. God’s faithfulness often reaches us through the people and the help He places around us.
Remembering together
After a great victory over the Philistines, Samuel set up a stone between Mizpeh and Shen and named it Ebenezer, “saying, Hitherto hath the LORD helped us” (1 Samuel 7:12). The stone looked backwards, to what God had already done. It was a monument to faithfulness, placed where everyone could see it.
God’s people have always needed such stones. In seasons of uncertainty, memory is one of our greatest weapons. You remember how God provided the school fees in that impossible year. You remember the job that came when the savings ran out. You remember the night in hospital when peace came over you for no reason you could explain. These memories cannot guarantee that tomorrow will go the way you want. They do testify to the One who will be there.
Remembering is also something we do together. Your own memory may fail you in the fog. That is when you need the testimonies of others. Listen to the older believers in your church. Ask them how God was faithful in their uncertain seasons. Let their stones of help remind you of yours. And if you are the one walking beside an uncertain friend, be careful with your words. Do not promise them a particular outcome by a particular date in God’s name. Sit with them, pray with them, help where you can, and remind them of what God has revealed about Himself. Through Isaiah, God spoke to a whole people facing an unknown future:
But now thus saith the LORD that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. For I am the LORD thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour: I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee.
“When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee.” The word is when. God’s people will pass through waters and fire. The promise is that they will not be overwhelmed, and that He will be with them in the passing through. The foundation of that promise is identity: “I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine.”
Six months later, Talatu showed me the back page of that exercise book. It had grown to three pages by then.
Some of the items on the left side had been resolved. Her husband’s company had eventually transferred him to Abuja, and the family had moved into a smaller flat there. Her mother had been stabilised on medication and was back in the village, frailer but alive. Other items had simply been replaced by new uncertainties: a new school for the children, a new church, a new city.
But the right side of the page had not changed. She had written, in her neat teacher’s hand: God is faithful. His mercies are new every morning. He will never leave me nor forsake me. My times are in His hand. My Father knows what I need. Underneath, in a different pen, added later: Hitherto hath the LORD helped us.
“The left side keeps changing,” she said. “The right side has never moved.”
You may be living in the fog right now. You may not be able to picture next Christmas. Take a piece of paper and draw the line. Write honestly what you do not know. Then begin, slowly if you must, to write what you do know. His compassions fail not. They are new every morning. Great is His faithfulness.
Teaching Companion
For Reflection
- What uncertainties are you carrying right now? Which ones do you find yourself rehearsing in your mind most often?
- How would you explain the difference between confidence in God’s character and certainty about a particular outcome? Where do you need to learn to say “but if not”?
- Hebrews 13:5 links contentment with God’s promise never to leave us. How might that promise change the way you think about money in an uncertain season?
- What practical, faithful things has God given you to do today, even while tomorrow is unclear?
- What “Ebenezer stones” can you remember from your own life, times when God helped you in uncertainty?
This Week
This week, do what Talatu did. Take a sheet of paper and draw a line down the middle. On the left, write honestly what you do not know about the coming months. On the right, write what you do know about God, drawing from Lamentations 3:22-26, Hebrews 13:5-6, Matthew 6:31-34 and Psalm 31:14-15. Each morning, read the right column aloud and then pray about one item from the left column specifically, ending with “My times are in thy hand.” At the end of the week, write one Ebenezer from your past at the bottom of the page.
A Prayer
Faithful Father, I do not know what tomorrow holds, and sometimes the not knowing frightens me. Thank You that Your mercies are new every morning and that Your compassions do not fail. Thank You for Your promise that You will never leave me nor forsake me. I bring You the things I cannot see: my work, my home, my family, my health. My times are in Your hand. Teach me to seek Your kingdom first, to do today’s work faithfully, and to leave tomorrow with You. Give me the courage to pray boldly for what I desire, and the peace to say, but if not, You are still good. Hitherto You have helped me. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Truth received brings freedom. Truth believed establishes the heart.
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. · Illustrations using first names only are composites unless stated otherwise.