Today and Tomorrow

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Just before I woke up this morning, I had a dream in which I was at the first church I pastored. We had just finished a funeral service and I was in line for a post-funeral meal with people from the church. The man in front of me and the man behind me were giving me a hard time because I had put some butter on a knife, and it kept trying to fall off. For some reason, the plates were further up the row, and I didn’t have anything to put it on yet.

Those guys giving me a hard time was an accurate portrayal of life then. I loved the teasing and kidding around we had with the men in that church. It went both ways. In my dream, one of those guys’ wife was defending me and explaining my predicament, which was a true portrayal of the way things were back then too.

But then, as the dream progressed, I suddenly realized I knew how those two men’s lives would develop and who they would be four decades later. I knew the sorrows and losses they would endure, how they would age and grow old, and how different life would be for them years down the road. I looked at their thick black hair and knew it would turn gray and sparse. It was as if I had time traveled. I saw them both as they were, and as they would become.

I wanted to say something but realized it wouldn’t matter and it wouldn’t help. What could they do about it, after all? Why burden them with thoughts like that and interrupt that moment of frivolity and laughter, that gentle ribbing and friendly banter by interjecting ideas about a future they couldn’t control and probably couldn’t change much if they tried? So, I felt a tinge of sadness for them…and for myself because I knew that life would, like a morning mist, quickly disappear and be over.

And I awoke…

And I thought about today…

And tomorrow…

And I prayed that I wouldn’t rob today of its joys by weighing it down with tomorrow's troubles, that I wouldn’t miss what life offered now for what it may or may not bring later. I prayed to heed Jesus’ words to “not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself…”

Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash