What lies/lays ahead = What is in store= What will happen in the future Lays is grammatically incorrect but many people use t this way.

You can understand it like this: Lay = existing, waiting Ahead = in front of you, on the road. It means something is waiting there for you and you will reach it soon. We never say "(someone) lays something ahead", we say "something lays ahead (for someone)". It always means something like: "someone is going to encounter this thing" "Trouble lies ahead for drivers on the mountain road, because a snowstorm is coming" Often used metaphorically: "Big problems lay ahead for Europe, the economic situation is getting worse"

To say "put in the future" implies that you are putting something off to a future date. That you have control over when it happens. Lay ahead doesn't mean you're going to put an event off to a future date. It's more a description of an inevitable event that will come in the future. So a better way to describe it would be something, an event for example, that WILL happen in the future. Not something you put off to a future time. It's used like this: A hard fought battle lay ahead of them. meaning a battle was in their future and was about to come. Or A long cold winter lay ahead of them.

(subject) will lie ahead. :) hope this helped^^