How we rob today of its potential (and what to do about it) …

If you were offering stock in your life, would it currently be a buy, sell, or hold?

Sounds like a silly question, but we often evaluate the quality of our lives, right down to the quality of our day, in the same comparative manner business executives do with their business.

For example, if a business generated $1 million in revenue last year, but made only $500,000 in revenue this year, the businessman would consider that a loss of half a million dollars. The average person might see that as making a half million dollars. But in business, this year is compared to last year, and projections for next year are closely scrutinized.

Maybe we aren’t so different in our personal lives.

If yesterday was a happy day, an easy day, a rewarding day, a blessed day, and today is anything less than that, we often think of today as a “bad day.” That’s because we compared today to yesterday.

If, when you got out of bed yesterday the sun was shining, you had a hot breakfast waiting for you, rush hour was a breeze, you got your biggest customer of the year … but today, you woke up late, scarfed down some cold cereal, was late to work because of horrible rush hour traffic, lost an important client at work, and discovered a flat tire on your car when leaving the office … you would likely think life today was not “good.” Because yesterday was “better.”

That’s how we routinely assess the quality of our lives: by the events of our day.

We quickly forget that God doesn’t owe us a single day. He doesn’t promise us a tomorrow. He doesn’t promise that today will be as blessed as yesterday. If you’re alive today, then God has gifted you with a day to live. If you compare today’s gift of life to yesterday’s, you’re missing the real gift, the real opportunity.

Each day isn’t going to be the same. Each successive day isn’t always going to excel in “quality” over the previous day. If what we think about and gain from today is based on comparing today to other days, then we certainly aren’t living in the moment. And if we add to that our anxiety of what tomorrow might be like, we’re really making a mess of what today could have been!

Jesus spoke to the anxiety over our days in a simple statement recorded in Matthew 6:34, “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”

We can overwhelm our day by trying to load onto it worries about tomorrow. We can also rob ourselves of today’s blessings and opportunities by comparing today to our yesterdays.

Today is not yesterday. Today is not tomorrow. Today is now. Use it — live it — fully and wisely as the singular gift from God that it is!

Scotty