Aussed in Translation...: It's Today, It's today, it's today! -Stuart Little

There have been quite a few unrelated events over the past month or so that continue to press on my heart the concept of “today”. I’m still not sure I’m fully aware of the lesson I’m meant to learn as sometimes I can’t quite hold my breath long enough to get to the level that Jesus likes to swim haha. But there are a lot of things about “today” that I have become clearer to me.

The Crazy guy preaching claims about the rapture or apocalypse or whatever was one such event. It only occurred to me after the fact that a lot of people actually thought that was a widely held Christian view. I’m here to declare that it most certainly is not. Infact quite the opposite. There are passages in Pauls letters to the early Churches that warn about false prophets such as this terribly misguided old man but I don’t feel like writing about that, its kind of irrelevent to the theme of the post. There are also many scriptures that explain that when that day will come noone will know (Matthew 24:36). On the other hand, one positive outcome of crazy rapture guy is it made us all think. Would we have been ready? If you died today, regardless if you believe the lord is returning some day or not, are you ready? Am I? How do we know? I don’t know if I can answer that confidentially but I do know a good place to start. Today. Psalm 118:24 says “THIS is the day the lord has made let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Every single day we have is a gift. If I’m not living everyday grateful for the cross since the only reason that I am given this day is because of that day than I am probably not ready. Most of you probably are familiar with The Lords Prayer which says “give us THIS day our daily bread”(Luke 11:3). It doesn’t say “and maybe tomorrows daily bread as well, just in case...” Point being we need to trust him today for our needs of today. And trust him tomorrow for the needs of tomorrow. If we are so worried about how we’re going to solve tomorrow’s problems we’re not trusting in his provision and probably not ready.

The difficult thing to balance is that the urgency of today often leads us (or maybe just me) to do things with a short term perspective, with no vision or care for building something or investing in something that takes time. One applicable way that I want to overcome this temptation is that I really want the people I’m closest to to start challenging me in my thoughts, attitudes, words, action, and intentions. I’m sure it’ll take awhile for me to respond positively to this (haha) but I know that although they love me just the way I am they also love me too much to leave me that way. I’m hoping that the discomfort of discipline will be better than looking back with regret.

Are there any decisions that you have been putting off making? Any person that you’ve had something you wanted to tell them? Any dream or skill that you want to make happen but aren’t pursueing? You have to do something today if you want tomorrow to be any different. If you don’t make any changes then tomorrow will just be an elongated today, and I don’t know anyone that wouldn’t like a better tomorrow.

Heres a couple photos just for funsies!