Day by Day, Step by Step

Be not therefore anxious for the morrow: for the morrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. - Mat 6:34

One of the most emphatic commands of Christ is the command not to worry about tomorrow.   More to the point, "Live one day at a time".  

I don't know about you but I've always had a problem keeping that one as my mind loves to travel to the future to explore what horrors might be lurking.   Yes and sometimes it loves to go back through the past to relive all my failures and bad days just to take up the spaces between.

But Jesus said, "Don't be anxious" and if anyone had a reason to be anxious it was he.  After all he knew how his earthly life would end, on a cross, beaten half to death.   He knew that since the beginning of his ministry.  How would you fare knowing how your end would come?  Wouldn't you be anxious?  

I think most of us would.  But Jesus said, "Don't be anxious about tomorrow".    How?

Well Jesus knew his end but he also knew the beginning after the end, that is, that after that horrible death through which he would take away the sins of the world,  he would then rise again and ascend to his father.  Moreover he would return in the person of the Holy Spirit to take up resident in our souls and from there continue to minister to a sick and dying world.

Therefore he could say that because he knew the "Purpose" of tomorrow is "God's Plan".   He could say, "Don't worry about what you have no right to worry about because God is in control of your tomorrow."

Think back to the times you have worried about tomorrow and then think about how much of what you worried about actually happened?   You might remember that very little of what you were worried about happened and in many cases nothing happened at all.  Or perhaps it wasn't as "bad" as you envisioned it.

That's because we can't  see the future.  No matter what our mind comes up with it has no way of knowing the end from the beginning, only God can do that.  He knows the entire process from beginning to end and has complete control throughout the process.

Jesus gave us the example of how to live that "One day at a Time" in the life he lived here on earth.   He told us:

" I can of myself do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is righteous; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of him that sent me."  John 5:30

Jesus told us that by himself, that is in his earthly nature as man he could do nothing of his own accord.  Over and over again he told us that "The father in me - HE does the work", and "By myself I can do nothing without my Father".

Jesus example to us was of a man living as He as God created man to live.   By a total dependence everyday on God as the source of his activity.  So as "I live by the Father, the Father lives in me, HE does the work, ..so now I send you, where I will live in you, doing my work".

That is to live everyday in a total dependent relationship on God who lives within us.   Our day doesn't belong to us but to him who decides our next step in the context of that 24 hours.  In every day, step by step, we live in yielded dependence on our creator to live his life in and through us.   As we do that we gain strong confidence in the fact that "He will direct our paths" for that day.   As day to day goes by and we are assured of his continued faithfulness we will be less apt to dwell on the unknowable future, resting in the knowledge that the God who is in our today will also be in our tomorrow.