Live For Today

“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.”  Matthew 6:34

I have blogged about this verse a couple of times before, earlier this year right after the pandemic hit and back in 2019.  The verse gives the best advice for any time, but particularly for now during this upheaval in our nation.  I ran across some notes that I had made in 2018 from the website psychologenie.com which gave several suggestions about keeping one’s sanity while living in difficult times, and these are difficult times, but certainly not the only difficult times that the world has experienced.  Folks tend to think that what they are going through must be the most challenging, but the past has seen rough waters, and the future is certain to bring even greater challenges.  God’s word makes that clear.

On that thought, I would like to comment on a few of these suggestions put forth by others who offer some good advice.  The first one is that “love is not about controlling, it’s about freedom”.  What does that mean?  One can’t be free if he or she is focused on controlling what others do.  We have no control over what others think and do.  We might have some influence over others, but their words and actions are based on their own choices and decisions.  When they make decisions that conflict with how we think, then we are prone to frustration and anger.  We certainly don’t want others trying to control us, so we shouldn’t try to control others.  We have enough work to do to control ourselves.  Scripture gives us admonitions for personal responsibility:  “For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged” (I Corinthians 11:31); “…let a man so examine himself”(11:38), and, of course, Galatians 5:23 focuses on the fruits of the Spirit, one of which is “self control”.  We need to stop worrying about what everyone else is doing and concentrate on our own behavior to be sure that it is in line with what Christ expects from us.  He even told Peter to mind his own business (in a nice way of, course-John 21:21-22).  Everyone will answer for himself or herself, not for others.

Secondly, the website advises us to “meditate”, that is, Christian meditation, in particular.  To meditate does not mean to sit around with your legs crossed and repeat some mantra, “hmmmmm”.  True Christian meditation begins by picking a Bible verse or passage, reading it, and concentrating on it.  What does it say?  Who is it addressing”  What is the context?  How does it speak to me?  Is it a rebuke of my sinful actions?  Or is it a positive affirmation of my efforts to be Christlike?  Psalm 1:2 tells us that the righteous believer’s “delight is in the law of the LORD; and in His law doth he meditate day and night”.  If the particular passage that you choose is about an event in scripture, try to put yourself in the event.  For example, in my study of the book of Matthew, I tried to picture myself as the 13th disciple, traveling with Jesus for three plus years, listening to His teaching, and watching as He did many miracles for the multitudes.  I also wondered how I would have reacted when He was arrested and put on trial.  I hope that I wouldn’t have deserted Him like all the other disciples.  I certainly wouldn’t have want to desert Him, but fear can be an overwhelming emotion.  And, then, of course, part of meditation is prayer.  When we pray, we talk to God.  When we study His word, He talks to us.

The next admonition is one that addresses that which many of us are guilty:  “stop overanalyzing the situation”.  Some of us become preoccupied with trying to figure something out.  Why did it happen?  How can I fix it?  God, why did You let this take place?  I don’t understand.  Woe is me.  We can drive ourselves crazy with constantly thinking about a situation, particularly one that we cannot do anything about.  If it is something that you can change for the better by thinking up a solution, then that is worthy of your time.  But much of the time, people have to tell us to stop “over thinking” the problem.  That can be difficult when the problem greatly affects us.  The verse for today tells us plainly to not even think about anything concerning the next day.  All that stuff will still be there tomorrow, and we can think about it then.  We need to concentrate on the events of the current day.  Who knows about tomorrow?  It may seem morbid, but we are not promised tomorrow.  Dealing with today’s situations is enough to keep us busy.  Corrie Ten Boom said:  “Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength:.  How true that is.  It’s exhausting to worry about things that probably will never happen.  Even if those things do happen, we likely couldn’t have done anything about them anyway.  If we keep our eyes on Jesus and allow Him to take control, it will alleviate a lot of pain and worry that we suffer.  After all, He is going to be up all night anyway, so why not give Him your problems and get some sleep?

I will cover some more of these bits of good advice on another blog.  Have a good week.  Keep the faith.