Tomorrow

There is a common saying in the circles of believers. It goes thus: Today is what you prayed for yesterday.

There is a sense that even though our life-time is in the hands of God, and at any given moment, that time could be up, we are expected to live maximally today — while also keeping in mind tomorrow.

There is a way to live, today, there is also a way to live today, in light of tomorrow. If we live this way, we will experience today maximally and be positioned to experience tomorrow positively.

Recently, I listened to a teaching by one of my mentors, and he made a point from the book of James which is helping to shape how I think about tomorrow:

[13] Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—

[14] yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.

[15] Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”

James 4:13-15 (ESV)

As we live today and think of tomorrow, James, our Lord’s brother, is showing us the proper framework for our approach. He clearly points out that a departure from this could a pointer to pride in our hearts.

First, he says: If the Lord wills, we will live.

This is the simplest and most profound basis for our existence in time. We live because the Lord wills it. In the day He wills otherwise, we die. Our time on earth is up. We transition to eternity. This is a statement of the sovereignty of God.

Death is not something that sits well with us, which is quite ironic, considering the fact that we are finite beings (in our current state). We are mortal, yet we grapple daily with our mortality.

We live because the Lord wills it. We die because the Lord wills it. We don’t live unto ourselves. We don’t die unto ourselves. The motivation for the gift of a new day resides in the boundaries of the will of God.

Second, he says: If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.

We are immediately drawn into an equation. If we live, it is because there is a this or a that, that the Lord intends for us to prosecute.

This is why we don’t live unto ourselves. Our lives were not meant to be used to pursue our own agendas. Neither were we supposed to ‘waste’ it away. We are supposed to use our lives to do this or that.

This is also tells me that there isn’t necessarily one thing that we are going to spend all that time doing; sometimes it may be this, at another time it may be that.

Consider, if you will, the life of William Wilberforce: he will be forever known as the man who spent his life in the fight for the abolishment of slave trade.

He wasn’t always involved in that fight, there was a time when, though he was a member of the house, he was doing other things, until he threw his hat into the fight to end slave trade as he became more and more convicted by his Christian faith.

However, notice the if.

The Lord will not always will that we live. There will be a day when He would not will any longer that we live. This has another significant implication, and it is this: provided the Lord wills, our lives are preserved.

We need not fear or worry, because we will live if the Lord wills it and nothing can stop us. Therefore everyday we have life, let’s us live purposely knowing that we are alive to do this or that. Recognize per time what they are and give yourselves to them.

Next week, I’ll consider how to live today, so that we can do this or that tomorrow.

Selah!