Human beings were designed by God to bear burdens:
Mothers bear children.
Soldiers bear arms.
Mortals bear God's image.
But not one person on the planet was designed to bear tomorrow's burden today.
We cannot live with both today and tomorrow's burden on our backs any more than our lungs can breathe water. It simply isn't our created purpose. That is why Jesus, the ultimate Human, demanded that we do not worry about tomorrow (Matthew 6:34). Today has more than its fair share of trouble and demands we are present at all times, exerting every whit of our focus on the 'here and now' to prepare for the 'there and then'.
After all, does not God Himself define His reality by the present? He could have named Himself I was or I will be (which are both true), but instead He calls Himself I am.
Jehovah is the God of the present tense.
If we wish to fulfill our teleologic design we must live in the presentness of the One whose image we bear.
But on a more down-to-earth level, why worry about tomorrow when it probably won't be as awful as we expect it to be? We do not own a crystal ball, and we have no idea if it will be as terrible as we predict (most of the days we dread prove to bring with them the richest rewards, do they not?).
What's more, tomorrow does not actually exist. It is more of an idea than a reality. Tomorrow never comes. You never wake up and say, "Tomorrow is here." Life is an ever-present today. All we can do is prepare for tomorrow by living the present tense as best we can.
Take no thought, then, for the future. You cannot endure tomorrow's burden today, but you can brave the present. And what does not kill you today, if embraced, will only make you stronger tomorrow.
Live in the presentness with the I am.
Dread one day at a time.
Mothers bear children.
Soldiers bear arms.
Mortals bear God's image.
But not one person on the planet was designed to bear tomorrow's burden today.
We cannot live with both today and tomorrow's burden on our backs any more than our lungs can breathe water. It simply isn't our created purpose. That is why Jesus, the ultimate Human, demanded that we do not worry about tomorrow (Matthew 6:34). Today has more than its fair share of trouble and demands we are present at all times, exerting every whit of our focus on the 'here and now' to prepare for the 'there and then'.
After all, does not God Himself define His reality by the present? He could have named Himself I was or I will be (which are both true), but instead He calls Himself I am.
Jehovah is the God of the present tense.
If we wish to fulfill our teleologic design we must live in the presentness of the One whose image we bear.
But on a more down-to-earth level, why worry about tomorrow when it probably won't be as awful as we expect it to be? We do not own a crystal ball, and we have no idea if it will be as terrible as we predict (most of the days we dread prove to bring with them the richest rewards, do they not?).
What's more, tomorrow does not actually exist. It is more of an idea than a reality. Tomorrow never comes. You never wake up and say, "Tomorrow is here." Life is an ever-present today. All we can do is prepare for tomorrow by living the present tense as best we can.
Take no thought, then, for the future. You cannot endure tomorrow's burden today, but you can brave the present. And what does not kill you today, if embraced, will only make you stronger tomorrow.
Live in the presentness with the I am.
Dread one day at a time.
We are always getting ready to live, but never living.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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