Your Flashforward:

My wife and I are pretty big fans of LOST.  We've watched every episode.  It all started during a tremendous weekend with our good friend the stomach flu.  When I got feeling better she came down with it and date night turned into holding the trash can while the other "evacuated".  I think it was my sister who loaned us season 1 & 2 on DVD.  With all the downtime we devoured every episode.

JJ Abrams, the creator of LOST, has a new show out (Which is chock full of ex-LOSTies).    I've been watching it with a family in our church because my wife works on Thursday nights.  The set up helps fight the loneliness and gives me a chance to build community.  On a side note, I love this family.

I also, love Flashforward, the new JJ show.  It's like LOST if LOST was a cop drama . . . and made any sense.  The premise is that for one minute and thirty-seven seconds everyone passed out and got to see what they were doing six months into the future.  Of course a lot of carnage occurred during that minute and a half, but for the most part the show is about the visions.  Some people get hopeful visions, others see their marriage ruined, but most frightening of all, some people see nothing.  The race is on to figure out why the blackouts happened.

Take the jump to read some more of my thoughts and how this show asks a question we should all want to answer.

So, I'm digging the sense of futility being woven into the show.  These characters genuinely seem to be unable to change the future.  The more thet attempt to change things the more they seem to be on rails.  Which is beautiful because our lives are a lot like that, we make these big choices and feel and react but God still has an outcome set.  For the main character, he would not be doing what he was doing unless he had his flashforward.  Is that not crazy time loop wackiness?  Even in light of his desire to not have his vision be true everything he does works towards that ultimate goal.  It's an interesting free will vs. predestination conversation starter.

Also, the show gives everyone a glimpse of what they are doing six months from now.  That idea resonated with me as I set in my office chair.  What would I be doing in half a year?  Would I be sitting in that same chair?  The thought of that seemed almost like a waste of time.  That's not saying the things I do from the chair aren't important, but, how many lives get changed while I sit in that chair?  How many people hear the Good News while I sit in my chair and preplan trips?  I'm not so much frightened by seeing nothing as I am seeing me doing nothing.

I want to see me making an impact in the lives of people.  I want to see Christ exhausted in my life.  I want to see a husband more concerned about his wife's joy than his own.  I want to see more of Him and less of me.  I just don't want to see me sitting in a chair doing work.

What about you?  Where would you be in six months and where would you like to be in six months?