Predicting the Future

       This post was inspired by an Albus Dumbledore quote from right after Harry informs him of Professor Trelawney's second prediction: "The consequences of our actions are always so complicated, so diverse, that predicting the future is very difficult business indeed." I thought that this was a really cool comment because it is so true. Often I do something that I think will lead to something completely different than what is actually does (whether in terms of emotions or events in me or in someone else). It's impossible for us to ascertain what our actions will lead to before hand because results do not depend on the action itself, the also depend on motives and the emotion/reactions of everyone else involved. For example, one might think that after God turned the Nile from blood to water (Exodus 17:20; read all of Exodus for full story) Pharaoh would have recognized God's power and let the Israelites go but only God can read the heart (Acts 15:8; Psalm 44:21) and He knew that Pharaoh's heart was hard and proud, therefore God was able to correctly predict the future to Moses even before He struck the Nile. There are examples of this all over the Bible ("this" being God reading our hearts and predicting the future). That is why it is so important that we obey God and listen to what He tells each of us to do. And since He alone has the power to accurately predict the future, we can trust that He knows what He's doing.