We are at a great hinge point in history this week. Everyone, it seems, is focused on the millennium transition. What will the new millennium be like? What will be accomplished? Will there be a cure for cancer? AIDS? Will space travel become commonplace? Will people finally learn how to get along with each other?

To learn about the future, it’s helpful to look back. To tell stories about what has been accomplished, and how it was done.

Until the 1880’s, ivory was the standard raw material for everything from knife handles to billiard balls. In the 1880’s, a dwindling supply of ivory combined with a boom in billiard playing created a crisis in the world. The nation’s largest producer of billiard balls, Phelan and Collender, offered $10,000 in gold to anyone who could come up with a synthetic substitute for ivory. Inventors went to work feverishly while people and elephants and walruses held their collective breaths. In 1907, Leo Baekeland made the breakthrough that everyone was waiting for. He came up with the right combination of phenols and formaldehyde and voila! Plastic. "By 1968, a college graduate looking for a surefire profession was being urged to listen to ‘just one word—plastics.’" Today it’s a $260 billion industry that employs 1.3 million people in the world. (The Life Millennium, 24)

There are many such stories from the past millennium, of people seeing a need or a crisis, and going to work to find a product, a medicine, a strategy, a method to address that need or crisis. Not many of them are stories of instant success. For the most part, the inventions and discoveries that have revolutionized our world have been the result of much trial and error. It took Edison more than 1,000 trials to come up with a useful, efficient, inexpensive light bulb. Then there are the ideas that have changed the world system. A document called the Declaration of Independence. The Emancipation Proclamation. Martin Luther’s 95 Theses that revolutionized the church. None of the great social or spiritual accomplishments have taken place without struggle and great dedication.

Nor have they taken place without a vision and the willingness to risk.

God called Abraham and Sarah to leave everything familiar and go to the place where God would lead them. Always forward, as Sarah has told us. Toward God’s promised land and toward the promised child who would begin a nation. For the wise men, God placed a star in the sky that was bright and beautiful and full of hope. As was true for Abraham and Sarah, the star would take them into unfamiliar territory. And there’s the problem. Because there are dangers in the unknown. Risks. The possibility of failure. The possibility even of having misperceived God.

It took the wise men a long time to reach Bethlehem. Some have estimated it took three or more years. And when they got there, Herod was waiting. And he was none too keen on the idea of a new king being born. I recently read that if it had been three wise women instead of men, there would have been some differences. They would have asked for directions sooner, arrived on time, helped deliver the baby, cleaned the stable, made a casserole, and brought disposable diapers as gifts! (story file, 16.2.6)

For Abe and Sarah it was at least 10 years before God’s promise was realized. During those ten years there would be discouragement, trial and error, temptation, and some rough roads to travel.

It was not without struggle, or pain, but the wise men kept following the star named "King of Israel" until they found Jesus. Abraham and Sarah kept following God’s promise until they reached their new home and their son Isaac was born.

What’s the name of your star? What is it that is drawing you into the future? What goals has God challenged you with?

Maybe you’re working on an invention, to make the world a better place. Maybe you’re working on an educational goal, or a professional goal. Maybe you have a strategy in mind to help make the social structures of the world more just and fair. Maybe you have dreams and plans for the church or for your ministry. Or maybe yours is a journey of the heart. A journey of healing and recovery. Whatever it is, if God has put the star in the sky, then it’s worth pursuing.

Whenever God places a star in the sky, it’s like an invitation. We can come or we can stay away. But, if we want to make a difference in this world, then like Abraham and Sarah, we need to get beyond our fear of the unknown.

Here’s a startling story that underlines how tough this is. It’s a story told by an Arab chief about a spy captured and sentenced to death by a general in the Persian army. This general had the strange custom of giving condemned criminals a choice between the firing squad and "the big, black door."

The moment for execution drew near, and guards brought the spy to the Persian general. "What will it be," asked the general, "the firing squad or ‘the big, black door?’"

The spy hesitated for a long time. Finally he chose the firing squad.

A few minutes later, hearing the shots ring out confirming the spy’s execution, the general turned to his aide and said, "They always prefer the known to the unknown. People fear what they don’t know. Yet, we gave him a choice."

"What lies beyond the big door?" asked the aide.

"Freedom," replied the general. "I’ve known only a few brave enough to take that door."

What will be your choice in the new millennium? Will you choose freedom, and follow your star? Will you choose the freedom to grow, to heal, to forgive, to discover, to laugh and cry. To invent, to embrace, to become whole. To be all that Jesus calls you to be? Will you choose freedom? Or will you choose fear, fear that keeps you in that which is familiar, but will kill the soul?