Living For Tomorrow, Losing Today

My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness - 2 corinthians 12:9

On the mountain yesterday, I stood still for a moment with the mist wrapping itself around me like a cloak and I peered through the tiny droplets that had formed on my glasses, and I listened. Silence. Not the eerie kind, but the full and wholesome kind, like the quiet presence of a good friend. From somewhere in the vast grey, a cuckoo called in the exact way a clock would on the hour, and in answer a frog nearby blurted out its loud, deep sound that I, after having seen him and measured him to be the size of my thumb, thought was too big for him and rather funny. A time like this is a time away from distractions and a time to ponder. My thought this day, as I turned back to the path and wandered over the pale granite covered in tiny pink flowers, was that He is with me.

Coming to the mountains this week, I could not shrug off the feeling like I was running away. Running away from things I didn't understand and things I couldn't control, to somewhere that made sense to me, where the roads twist and turn through the valley and the river surges down the path its cut out for itself, abundant and fast after heavy rainfall, and where the pine trees let their needles fall in a blanket on the slope as they grow straight and true. I came here to rest and think, and stepping away to get perspective is not a problem, but its not my point either. My point is and my problem was that I was worried about a future I couldn't understand or control. I wasn't strong enough, in the present, to face that future, so I thought to step away from the present, to run away, was the only thing that would help. In a way, it did. God didn't give me the exact answers I was originally looking for and the problems didn't disappear, but He did give me what I needed, which was a reminder of His presence, as well as the grace to face each new day. But I'm getting ahead of myself here - I wasn't strong enough for the future(s) I imagined, and I wanted to be.

here's the thing: i didn't need to be. i don't need to be strong enough today for what tomorrow will bring.

Let's go on a short tangent. I struggle to live in the present, and I think this is something many of us grapple with. Does this resonate with you as it does with me? I know it may not, but if we were to be conscious of our thoughts and the direction they travel for a day, what would we find? Perhaps, you spend less time thinking productive thoughts that contribute towards present activities than you'd like to admit, and rather more time re-living the frozen and unchangeable past, or you might be surprised to find, like I was, that you spend most of your present time thinking about the future, or your idea(s) of it anyway - and more like worrying over it, this idea of yours.

Friend, how are you spending your time? I know this is a blog post about God's presence and His grace, but I want to pause here briefly because, Friend, your time is not unlimited. Your time does not belong to you - did you create it? It's been given to you, and only a set amount of it. So, how are you stewarding your time? This is not something you need to answer now, it's just something we need to be conscious of, more so than we have been. For this moment, I've decided to write only on our tendency to spend our present worrying about the future. There are two parts to this activity, one is that we spend our present outside of the present, and two is that, more often than not, it brings worry, something that isn't healthy or helpful, and actually isn't necessary.

To spend the present planning for the future is not a bad thing, and to quote C.S. Lewis (I just have to, he's so cool) in his book The Screwtape Letters: "The duty of planning the morrow’s work is today’s duty; though its material is borrowed from the future, the duty, like all duties, is in the Present". The problem arises when we find ourselves in the present bodily but not mindfully, because our thoughts are constantly going onto the next thing, always the next thing - 2021 will be better, living for the weekend, just getting through today and living for tomorrow, or we let our minds drift just a little too far into situations we are not yet prepared to encounter.

Unlike your past and your present, which are both known to you and can both be neatly mapped out on an 8"x10" canvas to study and reflect upon, the future is boundless, spaceless, mutable, opaque, and incomplete. The future is a predetermined number of Nows yet to be lived. Bear with me here - how many Nows are you willing to paint on the canvas of Past in the colour of Future-That-Never-Happened? I imagine looking back on a canvas of your life painted in this colour is devastating. Friend, let's paint in the vibrant colours of Present, using the tools that have been given to us Now.

Okay, now we can talk about grace. Consider this passage:

I will rain down bread from heaven for you. the people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day - exodus 16:4

Before we hone in on the 'enough for that day' highlight there in a really pretty blue, let's just appreciate the awesome undeserved promise given to us that God is always with us. When I say, "He is with me", I mean that Love Himself is with me, and with Him, and so with me also, is grace overflowing, love that is true, mercy in abundance, joy beyond imagination, and nonsensical peace. "My grace is sufficient for you". What a promise. Now here's the thing I missed, His grace is given in the present, for the present, and so will it be given tomorrow for tomorrow. He is with me in my Present, and he is waiting for me in my future Presents. Where he is not, and therefore neither is his grace, joy, peace etc., is in my dreamt up imaginings of my future. This would explain my tendency to shout "God where are you!" as I spiral down the tunnel of my problem that is sure to become bigger than I could ever possibly handle - and His reply "I am here - where are you?"

The truth that "He is with you" is a double-action promise. Not only is He right here with me now, but He will be with me in every single moment of my future. Not only is He here, but He is also there, and if He is there, then there I long to be. I'll say that again, because it's literally changed my life:

no matter what future awaits me, there He will be, and so there i long to be also

Notice what's happened here? We've said, "let's not be extreme and spend our present dwelling on thoughts of the future", but we do need to give some attention to the other extreme, which is pretending tomorrow isn't going to arrive. Y'all we can't ignore that the future is coming, and it's scary, but instead of fearing it, what if we instead long for it? I don't mean we should wish our present away so we can get to the future, I mean let's not shy away from our future. Let's not take the 'easy way out'. Let's not run away from our today because we can't face tomorrow. God is there, abundant in more grace, love, mercy, joy and peace than could ever fill you, and He's already promised all this to you for when you get there. So let's RUN, and live today excited for the future because there He will be. I know the valleys are coming, and enemies are waiting to surround me on every side, but if God is in that deepest valley, I will walk through and fear no evil. If God is preparing a table for me in the presence of my enemies, then I'mma go sit at that table and receive my cup of overflowing!

Maybe, before reading this, you didn't know you had access to an ever-present Father who loves you and longs to be with you. Friend, you don't just have access to His goodness overflowing each and every day, but you have an invitation to enjoy an intimate relationship with Him that will grow each day. Jesus has become my closest friend and ultimate authority, and so when the truth settled on my heart the other day that He is with me, my world didn't change, but my heart did, and I hope it's touched yours too.