There’s a lot of songs out there that say “Hold on for one more day” or “Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow” or “Tomorrow, you’re only a day away.” Heck, after reading these lines, you’re bound to have one of them stuck in your head for the rest of today (you’re welcome). Most of these songs are meant to be encouragements to ignore or, at least, push past the troubles of today, and focus on a brighter future. But does this thinking really work? To be quite honest, I don’t think it does. After all, what is today but yesterday’s tomorrow?
When we focus on everything else but our current situation, we miss out on what God is trying to tell us in the moment. People who are grieving, for example, when trying to “push past” their grief, instead of allowing themselves the time to grieve (doesn’t Ecclesiastes 3 say there is a time to mourn?) sometimes deal with grief years longer than they should by trying to suppress it today. Not that we should live in grief, but, as the Scripture says “To everything there is a season and a purpose.” In other words, let it run its season, and let it serve its purpose.
Jesus reminds us that we should worry about tomorrow (so maybe we SHOULD stop thinking about it), for sufficient for today is its own troubles. James, Jesus’ half brother, tells us that we should say “if the Lord wills” then we should go to this or that down and do such and such. So whether we’re in the clear, or the eye of the storm, we shouldn’t look to the time beyond this, but look towards the God who desires our closeness, and will use even our tragedies to bring us closer to Himself.
Matthew 6:19-34
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
James 4:13-17
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
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