Today!

Freedom is being able to be present physically, emotionally, and spiritually TODAY. And I haven't been lately. It is important to be able to reflect on the past and have a future destination, but you aren't in the past anymore, and you aren't in the future yet, and if you ever forget that (which I do sooooo often) then you will find yourself unable to cope with today.

But the voice of truth says

You cannot change the past
You cannot know the future
Today carries enough worries of its own
So you'd better be there, ALL there, or today is gonna own you. And you don't need that.

Everyone knows that Jesus said don't worry about tomorrow. But lets be honest, which of you worry about tomorrow all the time? If Jesus said it, why can't we do it?

I think my new goal is going to live today, and ONLY today, as best as I can possibly do. All my worries about the future and regrets of the past are the sum of my efforts to find fulfillment, security, and prosperity on my own, and who am I kidding?

Who?

Noone.

What a waste of time? I am useless in those areas, and I know it! I know God holds all those things in his hand. All of them! The past has been redeemed, and my future holds hardship, trials, pain, and anguish, but those things will last only a season! Amid them also lie seasons of love, joy, peace, fulfillment, purpose, excitement, wonder, and life. And after the shadow of death passes over our physical being, then what? Hoooooooooooo MAN! I cannot even imagine! It has only begun!

So from now on I will look on the past and thank God for his provision thus far, and say as Joshua did, THUS FAR HAS THE LORD HELPED ME! His blood has removed the sins of my past, and I am a new creation in Christ! Sometimes this is hard to "feel" but its true. So thats what I will believe.

And when I think of the future I will trust in the God in whose hands my future rests, and place my hope not in this world but in the world to come. For in this world we will have troubles! But PRAISE GOD PEOPLE! For greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world! May every hardship that comes my way only serve to increase my hope!

And this is easy to say and hard to do, in fact it is impossible for us, but it is Christ in us that is our hope of glory.

I am going to practice living TODAY because while I know I am not done with my worrying about tomorrow, I know there is a better way to live, and I am going to fight for it.