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BY PASTOR BRANDON YOUNG
Recently, I was listening to the radio when a Blue Bell Ice Cream advertisement was played. The jingle went, “The good ol’ days are being made right now.” I could not seem to get that phrase off my mind. I immediately thought why do we stop enjoying today, and what causes us to abandon today for tomorrow? Instead, we embrace the past, or we project our thoughts into the future. We cannot hold onto yesterday and reach for tomorrow without forsaking today completely. 86,400 seconds in a day. How much are we valuing those seconds? Are we abusing and taking those precious seconds for granted? What can happen today? Are you expecting today to be the day that things change for the better? I began to study what Jesus said about today.
As our Lord was teaching us how to pray, he said in Matthew 6:11, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Jesus wanted us to focus on the day at hand. We must recognize we live day to day on God’s provision. In the Old Testament, God provided manna to the Israelites so that they would not starve, but the manna came with a stipulation. They could only gather enough for the day, and they were not allowed to gather for the following days. If they gathered more than what was needed for the day, it rotted and began to stink.
Jesus went on to say in Matthew 6:34, “Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Jesus wants us to value the present rather than continually looking back at the past or worrying about the future. In fact, Jesus commands us not to think at all about tomorrow. Without really knowing it, we are making the good ol’ days right now. We will look back on photos taken today and recognize it was an amazing day, but at the time the photo was snapped, it seemed like an ordinary and simple day. When we think of extraordinary, we think of vacations, Christmas, and birthdays, but truly every day we live with those we love and care about is extraordinary. The Bible tells us not to esteem one day greater than another.
The psalmist says in Psalm 118:24, “This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” So, the Lord makes every day, and nothing the Lord makes is ever mediocre or ordinary. We must choose to see today as a new opportunity and a blank canvas. Take a moment and think about the new opportunities with each sunrise. The Bible tells us that the Lord’s mercy is new every morning. We should be expecting great things today! Worrying makes us feel like we have control over something, and that we can do something to change it. It is vital that we depend on God and stop trying to control things. We must learn to live in the moment, and that is impossible as long as we are stuck in the past and filled with anxiety about the future.
Isaiah 43:18-19 says, “18 Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. 19 Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.” We should expect God to do great and new things today.
We are not promised another day and life is short at best. It is time to savor every moment and be intentional with our words and actions. Life is only a few days and like a vapor it is here and then it is gone. Just think about how quickly life is passing and those days add up quickly while we are waiting on something better. Great things are happening today, and the Lord is with us now. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 6:2, “2 (For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.)” Now is the acceptable time and today God is saving each one of us from things that we cannot even see or know. God is doing spectacular things for each of us today! There is no greater than “NOW!” We have convinced ourselves that the past days were great and our future days will be even better, when in all actuality, today is the best! I would like to challenge each of you to let go of the past and take a break from the plans of the future and be present in this day. Watch the sunrise, smell the flowers, help a neighbor, play with a child, sing a song, laugh uncontrollably, look up at the clouds, and take a deep breath knowing that God is in control, and He wants you to rejoice in this day that He made especially for you!
(Brandon Young is Pastor of Harmony Free Will Baptist Church, Hampton)