Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”  James 4:13,15

 

Have you ever stopped to think that today is the smallest division of God-given time?  Seconds, minutes, hours are artificial, man-made time divisions, but the period of time from dawn to dusk is the shortest division of time on God’s clock.  Time is a strange thing in itself.  It is something like fence posts or telephone poles you pass as you drive down the highway, but like a fence it encloses our lives, and between the two poles of life and death we are very much prisoners of time.

The perplexing part of it is that we all know when time began–at least for us individually, since time is reckoned from the date of your birth.  But we are never quite sure when God will press the stop-watch, and time will have become history–at least, for us.

Have you ever thought much about the way that time governs your life?  Possibly as no other generation, we are slaves to the clock.  We are bound to schedules and deadlines, and we think that the world will stop unless we make those deadlines.  Sometimes it is good for us to realize that when our schedules go awry, life will go on.

That painful realization first was driven home in my life, the day following a speaking engagement in Cardiff, Wales.  My wife and I took the overnight train to London where we were to meet a tour group which was about to depart for the continent.  When we arrived at the station in London, we thought there was plenty of time to transfer from one station to another.  Being young and not having much money, we decided to take the underground.  We bought our tickets and boarded.  But a few minutes into the journey, the underground train coasted to a stop, and we were 100 meters or so underground.

How were we to know that the engineers were to go on strike–and we had to be caught in the middle of it?  We sat there, and stewed and fumed.  If we didn’t get there, we would miss the train and miss the tour which had been paid for.  The longer we sat there, the higher was my stress level. I think I learned a lesson that day–a painful one.  What we believe is so important at the time, really is not as important as we think.  Life goes on when your plans go awry.

There is a reason why you must learn to live one day at a time.  God has promised guidance and direction for just today.  Time and time again, the Bible emphasizes the importance of today.  God promised, “As your days, so shall your strength be” (Deuteronomy 33:25,NKJV).

When Christ taught His disciples to pray, He said, “After this manner, therefore, pray ye, ‘Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.  Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread!”  There you have it again.  Give us this day–not tomorrow–not next year–but meet our needs today.

You may be frustrated because your schedule and your goals haven’t worked out the way you planned.  There’s good news!  God promises help for just today.  He said, “The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and He knows them that trust in Him” (Nahum 1:7).  Living in the present does not mean a total disregard of the past nor a nonchalant attitude toward the future.  It means that you find God’s grace to cope with the flight that is cancelled, the stock that collapses, the loan that doesn’t get paid, and the hopes for tomorrow that don’t materialize.  Yes, God help us to find His strength for today.

Resource reading: James 4:13-17.