We have a choice every day to live out of the past, the future, or the now. The way that we respond to any occurrence in life, any choice that we make, comes out of one of those paradigms. We are either making a decision based on the past, we’re making looking ahead to the future, or we’re making it thinking only of the present.

Many of us, I believe, live in the past. We may not realize it. We may never notice it. We may even not think it true, but we do. We carry around with us arrows sticking out of our back. They are wounds, noticed or unnoticed, that at one point in time told us who we were, or even worse, who we are. You’re stupid. You’re not worth much. You have to do __________ to be loved. You don’t deserve any better. You are gay. People aren’t worth your time. It’s up to you to keep the peace. And the list goes on and on. They come from our parents, from our family, from teachers and friends, from society as a whole. It might have been one word that stuck with you forever, or it may have been a thousand words repeated endlessly from those you loved. And we consciously or subconsciously have chosen to believe them. We opporate out of those hurts, not out of the truth. We live in the past.

We have a choice, though, to live in the present or the future. Which is better, I don’t know! Viktor Frankl in his book Man’s Search for Meaning writes about how those in German death camps had no future. As far as they knew the camp was thier life and their death, for them the camp was eternal in nature. And so, they only had today. According to Frankl, those in the camps had the choice to give up, to die inside (though their outsides died much more slowly), or the choice to live for the moment. Most, he says, spent their time trying to avoid death, worrying and scheming, they were not able to make the best choices for the moment. But there were a few who were able to overcome the obstacles in order to truly live (even though surrounded by death). They no longer feared death. They lived for today.

Christians, similarly, know that tomorrow is not promised. Don’t worry about tomorrow, Proverbs reminds us. Live in today! What can you do today to show grace to the world? Who can you love today? What difference can you make today?

Sounding quite the opposite, however, is the idea that Christians live in the future. We know the end, we know the story. We’ve got connections and need not live in fear about tomorrow. God will take us when he pleases and we know where we are going when he does. And so we see further than today, we see tomorrow. We don’t live simply for today, for what comes today, because we know that God has set out what happens tomorrow. We anticipate. We anticipate tomorrow, because tomorrow belongs to God. I may try to seize today for my own self, but tomorrow alone is Gods.

I’m on a journey of figuring out where I opporate out of. When I’m done I’ll let you all know.