Today is Tomorrow’s Yesterday
“Everybody’s work’n for the weekend…”; “Someday my prince will come…”; “Yesterday…how I long for yesterdaaaay…”
These song lyrics reflect the prevailing thought patterns in our society. Why is it that we spend our lives either worrying about the future or longing for the past? Or, we may pin all our hopes on the future and wallow in regret for the the past. In The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis, the demon Screwtape advises his nephew Wormwood on how to most effectively attend to a new Christian. In other words, Screwtape teaches Wormwood to tempt his human away from “the Enemy” (God). Lewis points out that we, as humans, live in time, but that God destines us for eternity. So, Screwtape points out that God “wants them (humans) to attend chiefly to two things, to eternity itself, and the point of time (we) call the Present. For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity.”
Screwtape goes on to explain to Wormwood that the goal of a tempter is to keep humans from living in the present moment. “In a word, the Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most completely temporal part of time—for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays.” For example, Satan would much rather have us be so busy pursuing “a better life” for our families that we neglect to spend time with those families right now. Preoccupation with the future keeps us from living in the moment.
The Bible repeatedly reminds us that we are powerless to control the future. For example, in Luke 12:6 Jesus tell the story of the Rich Fool—a man who had such a great crop, that he gleefully made plans to expand his buildings to store the crops and then live the good life after that. But God told him, “You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you.” When the Israelites were in the desert, God provided manna every day for their survival, but he would not allow then to hoard it—he clearly wanted them to depend on him on a day-to-day basis.
But shouldn’t we plan for the future?
Of course we still need to do our duty in preparing for the future—but Lewis insists that the planning itself needs to be viewed as part of the Present. In other words, my task right now may be to prepare an earthquake kit for my home. Instead of dreading the looming menace of the “Big One”, I will focus right now on what I need to do today.
Another way of counting on a future that may not happen is procrastination. All too often we put things off until “a better time”. Many believers earnestly intend to grow closer to God, and plan to mature in their faith when they are less busy. This is dangerous thinking—God wants us to seek him now. Right now.
How does this affect the church?
Many of us have great expectations, or hopes, or great worries about the future for SCFBC. We feel so concerned that we scurry around in an effort to affect the future. While we should obviously keep the future in mind, the Present is where God wants to use us. I challenge each us to ask God what he wants us to do today (right now). Instead of being fixated with future (or on the past), let’s fix our eyes on Jesus, and leave the future to him.
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