I took my grandson to the library for the first time last Friday. J enjoys being read to, so I hoped he would eagerly pick out books. He was more interested in playing with toys in the children’s room, so I allowed him to play for 20 minutes before I picked out four books for us to read later.

My grandson is an active 19-month-old toddler. He obediently held my hand when we left the library, but I briefly let go of his hand as I unlocked the car. In a flash, he darted into the parking lot. I had parked well away from the library, and no moving vehicles were nearby. I quickly abandoned our library books and chased my little runner, hoping he would not do a faceplant on the asphalt. I soon caught him and returned to our vehicle.

As a woman returned to her car, she saw the whole thing. As the woman approached us, she smiled and said, “It only takes a moment.” As I acknowledged she was right, she stepped on a pinecone and fell face-first onto the blacktop, sending her book, movie, and glasses flying. Although she fell hard, thankfully, she did not appear to be seriously injured. Still holding my grandson, I retrieved her glasses and book and eventually found her DVD under a vehicle 20 feet away.

I could not help but reflect that she had said, “It only takes a moment,” just before falling. It reminded me of this Bible passage, “Look here, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit.’ How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow?” (James 4:13-14, NLT)

Like the lady in the parking lot, imagining unexpected things happening to someone else is always easier. James made the point that none of us know what will happen tomorrow, just as the woman had not imagined she would fall five seconds after her comment.

All of us have faced challenges that we did not see coming. Since the future is unknown to us, trusting someone who knows infinitely more than we can ever hope to know makes much more sense. We can entrust our future to a God who knows what lies ahead – in the next minute, the coming month, the approaching year, and even the decades ahead.