It is often said days are like years, and years are like hours. Paradoxical as it seems, it has certainly felt that way. What has felt like a life of forever has happened in a blink. As the wise man said, life is but a vapor. It has felt like a warm breath on a cold morning that combines to create steam from the mouth. It enamors the child who forces out the air, but as quickly as it forms, it disappears into the dark winter night.
Read: We Are All Not Called To Do But to Be
That is time. I feel as if I have spent much of it wishing it away to get the next click of the hour hand, just to get to today and wish I had more of it. But the Lord has said there is only today. Tomorrow is not promised. Tomorrow has its own worries (Matthew 6:34). Today, this is the day the Lord has made, and my responsibility is to rejoice and be glad in it. Today is what I have. Today does not mean that tomorrow is unplanned, just that tomorrow is not promised.
So the decision is to live fully today.
Living Fully Today
Most of my life has been lived with a wait until tomorrow. Tomorrow there will be more time, more money, more resources, more of what I lack, more motivation. Tomorrow will have less frustration, less aggravation, and less stress. And in the promise of waiting for all the tomorrows, how often have I lost today. Not lost like the parable of the woman who lost a coin. Her coin was recoverable. Lost in that it is never coming back. Never again will the Lord create another today. Never again will the calendar of my life exist on this exact day in this very moment.
So there has to be a choice to live. Live in the moment. Be present in the present. Spend the time and invest in the lives of those you love. There will never be another today.
The question gets asked in movies and music if we knew today was the last day, what would you do? If the world was going to end, how would you live? Well, it is. When the clock strikes midnight, this day will never again exist. How did you live? How did you love? How will you go out as today became yesterday?
Did you love well? Did you serve well? Did you express the light of the Lord to those around you?
I am not advocating a reckless YOLO (you only live once) lifestyle, but I am challenging you and me to live fully in today. The Lord promised that the enemy of this life wants to steal, kill, and destroy, but on the backside of that warning is the promise of life that is full and abundant in this life and the next.
A full life is a decision. It is a decision to live eyes wide open to what God is doing in this very moment with anticipation of the next. It is full when we drink deep of the wellspring of what God has placed in front of us. It is full when we stop wishing away the hours and start experiencing the seconds.
Maybe the Lord commanded us not to go to bed angry and resolve our differences before the sun went down because he wanted us to be aware that we are not promised the sun is coming up the next day. With our affairs put into place, if tomorrow’s sunrise kisses us, we can enter it without yesterday’s debts. So live today. Live full as God fills your life. Live present. Live with love. Serve Him with faithfulness while today is today.
And if tomorrow comes, do it all over again.
Jeff Pitts is a church planter in Cleveland, TN. He loves his family, coffee, and NEEDTOBREATHE.
