So often some yesterdays can seem better than today. So many people lived in our past who have since gone on to Heaven. Older adults like me remember yesterdays when we had more endurance and less arthritis.
We can remember the God of our Past, Who did great things for us, and yearn for Him to return to us all the people and places and delights that He took with Him when He left.
But the gift of today is exactly that: a gift. There are people who surround us who love us and are hungry for our love. There are places and experiences to savor. There is still important work for us to accomplish.
Columnist Jan Glidewell said "You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present."
God is also the God of our Present. God has a purpose for our being here in this particular place at this particular time. God still has incredible gifts to give us - today, dawn to sunset to night.
God only asks us to bring our minds, eyes, and ears to focus on everything that is happening around us. Life is incredibly rich with promise and meaning. The very real problems and ills in our lives are temporary and passing. The love and relationships and experiences happening to us and around us are eternal, and of eternal consequence. If we quiet ourselves, we will sense God's Presence in each moment. We will sense also where He is leading us to be, who He is leading us to, and what He is encouraging us to say and do.
It's easy. If we accept the present, we live with God Present in our present. Our Present God is Love, asking us for acts of love.
But God is also our Future. Each action and word and event of our past and our present prepares and leads us in some unfathomable, mysterious way to our future, unknown to us but known to God.
How much do we trust this God Who holds our past, present, and future in His loving, guiding Hands?
Corrie Ten Boom said "Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God."
The God Whom we have come to know through His Word and through His Son and His own actions for us says "I Am always with you."
Our only way forward is to, in every present moment, ask God to deepen our Faith. Faith gives us the courage to accept that what is, is significant, and that our tomorrows will also be rich in meaning and contentment. Faith gives us the gift of Trust that, beyond our earthly future, an Eternal future waits for us. This eternal Future, promised by God, rises like the sunrise, illuminating the darkness of transitory sorrows so we can glimpse, in Faith, its endless peace and bliss and Love. Our God of our Eternal Future promises us no tears will be shed and all will be well.