In C S Lewis' "Screwtape Letters" the wise old demon Screwtape has some sage advice for his nephew, a novice demon who is learning the business of luring men away from God. "He (God) would therefore have them continually concerned either with eternity ...or with the Present ... Our business is to get them away from the eternal, and from the Present. "
So the strategy from hell is to get us to spend our time either thinking about the past, dwelling on past failures or injuries, or to dwell on the future which easily leads to fear and anxiety, or to greed. With your mind filled with failure, injury, anxiety and greed, precious little life energy is left for living well "today".
I think there is profound wisdom in this idea and a life principle that makes a huge difference in one's daily living. How much of the angst that you feel is rooted in something that you are responsbile for today versus some point in the future? How much of the guilt, regret or injury you experience is from some event in your history? Imagine if both your past and future were removed from your mind's eye and you were only aware of what was on your plate for today? Wouldn't that be a tremendous relief!
Jesus says basically the same thing in Matt 6:34 "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." The birds of the air are smart enough to let tomorrow take care of itself, what's our problem? Remember the prayer "Give us this day..." Not much in there about tomorrow is there? When you get right down to it Jesus doesn't promise to take care of "tomorrow", but he does have "today" covered, and if you manage to take care of your "todays", tomorrow will eventually get taken care of.
I'm not as far from retirement as I once was and I sometimes catch myself obsessing over the performance, or lack thereof, of my 401k. In Luke 12 Jesus speaks pretty directly to this " And he told them this parable: The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’ “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.” " I don't think scripture forbids saving for the future, but it's far too easy to get your hope in your nest egg and forget that it's God who looks after our future, in this life and in the next.
A wise old man once told me a little jingle that's stuck with me, "By the yard it's hard, by the inch it's a sinch". I have several ambitions for my life, I want to be a great husband and father, to be a great infuence on others and to experience all the beauty and wonder life has to offer, but I don't have the ability to control what my life will be, other than what I do "today". "Now" is where my will affects the world, it's the "inch" that I can get my mind around. If I live well "today", and do this on a daily basis, I'll find in the end that my life was well lived.
So, if you want an extrordinary life, live an extrordinary day. I believe that's our birthright as children of God, and that's also what Screwtape fears.
