Today Matters
I think we have a tendency toward one of two extremes. We’re either preoccupied with the past or fixated on the future. But do you know today matters? And when I say today, I’m not meaning a 24-hour period after which tomorrow comes. What I am talking about is a period in history that is our unique day. It’s a kairos moment, if you will, in the redemptive history of heaven and earth. That’s the today I’m talking about, and that day matters.
You see, I don’t believe God put you and me in the day, the generation, or the hour in which we live only to have our hearts covetous for what we don’t have; namely, past days or future days. Now, we honor what came before us, and we anticipate and want to prepare and set the stage for what is to come, but we also want to acknowledge and recognize and live in this moment. I really think the key to a lot of success in life in different areas, although it’s not the only key, but it’s a very significant key, is living fully alive in the moment. Some people call it “being present.” So, it’s being present in the moment when you’re with your family, being present when you’re with other people, and being present when you’re doing something significant. It’s not thinking about something else or what you need to do next.
Living in the Moment
Not very long ago, President Biden was at Dover Air Force Base as the American flag-draped coffins of 13 soldiers were unloaded. He was caught at that very somber moment checking his watch. When you’re a leader and you’re in the middle of something sacred, you’re going to get busted by the press and millions of Americans. The press and social media aren’t only occasionally watching; they’re watching everything all the time. They’re watching every movement and every miscue and every mistake. Consequently, when you’re standing at attention, when those coffins carrying our sacred dead that we honor and weep for pass by, and you check your watch four times, you’re going to get busted. And rightly so.
The truth is something like this could happen to any of us. It’s not just the president. We can be in a room with people yet not be in the moment. We can be looking past the person in front of us who is trying to tell us something important to them—something we too should value—yet we stare past them lost in our own thoughts. And we can be in such a “got a lot on my plate and have to keep moving” state of mind that we push past significant moments with others. You know, you can have that type of an attitude in your heart, just in general, about the day in which you live, about this generation or hour in history. I’m a student of history. I love history, but I know this one thing: History happened in someone else’s generation.
Gifts from former generations as well as the lessons learned from former generations are seeds for the day in which you and I live. We’re called to build on the foundations of what others before us have laid. When we hand off our responsibilities to the next generation, I want my ceiling to be their floor, don’t you? I want them to build on what we’ve started. So, it’s good to look back and draw from the past and learn, but we want to build on it.
We also want to position the next generation for what we’re doing. And so today matters. It matters, and it deserves to have our full attention because covetousness is not just about things. I think we can actually live our lives covetous of other generations.
Coveting the Past or the Future
We look back, and we say, “Wow! That would’ve been a great time to be alive.” You can read the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—and think, Man, I would’ve loved to have walked with Jesus when He was on the earth. That would’ve been amazing. But guess what? That’s not what God had in mind for you or me. We can learn from the experiences of others written about in the Gospels, but we must not live our lives disillusioned, disappointed, discouraged, or even covetous about something that doesn’t belong to us. We were placed by God in today, not yesterday or tomorrow.
And we can be just as guilty, looking forward in time and anticipating the day that this happens or that happens. It’s awesome to think about the possibilities that are out in front of us—that are in our future. I think we need to have a vision for the future, but not to the exclusion of honoring the day and the hour in which we live. So when David said in Psalm 118:24 (ESV), “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it,” he recognized that he was God’s man marked for God’s hour and that what he did with his life, with the gift of his day and the gift of life right then and there, mattered.
I believe the worst posture that we can take in the current hour in which we live is complacency. It’s complacency that says, “I just don’t care.” And complacency is often what drives us to look backward to the glory days or to become too enamored with what we’re going to do “someday.” We must continue to do what we’ve been called to do in our day, just like Noah did when he built the ark. Noah was building the ark for 120 years. What he was building didn’t make any sense because it didn’t seem to fit the hour or the place. There had been no rain, and he was nowhere near an ocean. But if Noah had been complacent, he probably would not have finished his assignment for his day. Thankfully, Noah was a righteous and faithful man in his day.
Christian, the future is actually what we live for today. We’re continuing the work that others started generations before us. We build upon what they did in the past and do what we’re called to do today in anticipation for what we know the Lord wants to do in the future. So, today matters. What are you going to do with it?
