The "Today" Show

I've become increasingly aware of how often my mind drifts beyond the day I'm actually living. I can spend a lot of my day moving ahead to what might happen next month or next year. I might also circle back to conversations or events from yesteryear that are long gone and now a permanent part of the past. Meanwhile, the sand in Today Joe's hourglass slips quietly by.

Part of what's sharpened this awareness is, of course, age-related. I'm sixty-six now, and an increasing number of my peers are walking through losses that once felt distant. Recently, two friends received news that none of us can fully anticipate. Their spouses were here one minute and gone the next. One moment life was moving along as it "always" had. The next, everything was changed.

We speak casually about our future plans as though they're contracts. The Bible speaks differently. Repeatedly, it narrows our focus to something far more immediate: "Give us this day our daily bread." Not long-range assurances. Daily bread. Enough for today.

But God doesn't use the word "today" as merely a calendar reference. It's our home. It's where we are meant to live. Paul David Tripp refers to us living between "the already and the not yet."

Today, if you hear His voice… (Psalms 95: 7-8; Hebrews 3: 7-8; Hebrews 3:15).

Today, choose whom you will serve…(Joshua 24: 15).

Do not worry about tomorrow (Matthew 6:34).

Scripture references "today" hundreds of times. Obedience is always present tense.

When the Israelites wandered in the wilderness, God could have provided food in bulk. But He didn't. In the Book of Exodus, manna appeared without fail each morning with the dew. They were instructed to gather only what they needed for that day. Those who attempted to store extra discovered it would spoil by the next morning.

God structured their survival around daily dependence on Him. They would learn to wake up and trust Him over and over. Provision was sufficient, but it wasn't stockpiled. Security was relational, not accumulated. By the end of "It's a Wonderful Life," George Bailey had learned this lesson when his practice of friendships and serving others trumped his lack of accumulated wealth.

It's much easier to grow in trust when we lack insulation from our own needs.

In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), Jesus teaches us not to worry about what we'll eat or wear. He points to birds that neither sow nor reap and to lilies clothed in beauty. Then He draws the boundary clearly: "Don't worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

He isn't condemning planning. He's correcting preoccupation. Worry projects us into a future that isn't ours and is by no means under our control.

In Proverbs (27:1) we're told not to boast about tomorrow, for we don't know what a day may bring. Later, James (4: 13-15) warns us against speaking too confidently about what we'll do "today or tomorrow," as though we have true control over such things.

We aren't promised tomorrow. We have been given today.

We have two primary ways to miss this: regret over yesterday or anxiety about tomorrow. In either case, we miss the people and opportunities right in front of us — the small promptings, the ordinary chances to serve.

Holiness rarely arrives in grand gestures. It's formed through attentiveness — in things like the conversations we're having today, the responsibilities we carry out faithfully, the temptation we resist now, and the gratitude expressed to the next person we encounter. All of it happens in the present tense.

I'm only beginning to understand that the biblical meaning of "today" isn't merely a unit of time. It's more accurately viewed as the finite space where faithfulness is built.

Many years ago, when I first saw the screen version of Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring, a line from Gandalf struck me. Frodo is lamenting the burden placed upon him and the timing of it all. Gandalf attempts to simplify things for him by replying, "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

There's no embedded promise of clarity about Frodo's future. The statement reduces everything to stewardship over what's here and now. We don't control the era in which we live, nor how long we're given. We certainly don't control tomorrow (or yesterday now that it's passed).

We decide what to do with the time we're given — and that time is today.

It's not meant as a denial of responsibility — just a proper ordering of it (and that's coming from a planner). It's fine to plan, but not to presume. We can remember without regret and anticipate without surrendering our peace.

When we pray, "Give us this day our daily bread," we acknowledge a holy boundary. We ask for enough of what we need for now. Enough provision, grace, strength, patience, and prayerfully, wisdom for this day.

Holiness grows when we meet God where He has placed us — not in imagined futures or revised pasts, but in the ordinary hours directly before us.

So, we try not to focus on mastering holiness somewhere in our future. It, too, is a destination we practice in our "present"—our mostly ordinary days.