Today You Have Today

On the wall in my kitchen hangs a plate that has imprinted the saying:  Today you have today.  It hangs there every day… every day I walk through the doorway below it and rarely look up to see that plate — or any other specific thing that hangs on the wall, for that matter.  Except one of the clocks.

Isn’t it interesting?  Many things in our lives we see — but don’t really see — every day.  And every day these things are before us and could remind us that we have opportunity to do things today — each day — to recognize, to act upon, to remember things that are important — you know, the people and things that our walls sort of memorialize or showcase… photographs, quotes, awards, treasures of days gone by.

Things on our walls should be more than a memory… more than a decoration adorning a space in our home — though they are or do these things.  They should be daily reminders of what God’s done, how He’s worked and what He wants us to remember — not just for the past, but for the future.  And the only day of the future I have to live is today, for today is yesterday’s future.  In a moment I could be gone… in a moment everything around me could be gone and the only thing left would be what I did with all the today’s the Lord has given me.

He’s only given me my today’s — but I live them in light of yesterday and in light of tomorrow.  Does that make sense?  Things done in my yesterdays affect or have consequences today.  This is so important for me to remember as I live out each day because, as this is true, whatever I’m doing or deciding not to do today will have an effect on,  or have consequences for, tomorrow.   It’s easy to forget this truth if we just keep walking through doorways and never look up.

Today you have today.