And in the morning, long before daylight, He got up and went out to a deserted place, and there He prayed. Mark 1:35 (AMP)
Tomorrow Land – Part 1
I watched the movie “Annie” for the first time with my Nanna when I was eight years old. I like to think it was ritualistic for her, a coming of age celebration. More likely, she was trying to keep me quiet for an hour or two – I was quite a talker. The movie captivated me, and the song… well, after the movie had ended, I sang that song for days, and weeks, and years on end…
“The sun will come out tomorrow
So you got to hang on 'til tomorrow, come what may!
Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you tomorrow
You’re only a day away.”
Tomorrow is a mystical place where dreams come true, sadness does not exist, and everything is good and pure and as it should be.
Often I’ll find my day filling up to overflowing: school runs, errands, work, kids, house… I write it off, and think to myself, “Today is not working! I’ll do it tomorrow, tomorrow will be better.” I put a lot of pressure on tomorrow to be perfect, to perform better than today and gift me what this day could not. But then, when tomorrow comes and is now today, I find myself in the same pickle and think, “I'll leave it for tomorrow.” That wonderful place where everything goes to plan, and I shine like the sun.
When I’m in the middle of heartbreak and challenging times, tomorrow seems like such a nicer place than today. The thought of tomorrow can be the thing that gets me through the day, but it also blinds me from living this moment fully – no matter how hard.
On the flip side, tomorrow is a dark and frightening place full of unknown and uncertain things. Who can know what lives there and how we will arrive at it? Often, I’ll find myself gazing at my sleeping children, looking at myself in the mirror or just thinking about life, and the dread of what ‘could be' fills my soul. So to make sure tomorrow is as safe as it can possibly be, I play today as safe as I can. ‘Safe' turns into over-cautious, rigid and disinclined to do anything outside of the normal and average. Caged in by my fears.
Will the sun come out tomorrow? Or will the darkness sink deeper?
We say that the best is yet to come. Yes, indeed. But we can give this moment our very best too. We don’t have to wait till tomorrow to go hand in hand with “best.” Whether we are experiencing our highest high, our deepest low, or walking through monotony, this day – right now – in this moment, the Divine’s BEST love envelopes us and we can give that love our best attention. Tomorrow is always just out of our reach; it's eternally elusive. But today? We hold today in our hands. We have all the power that we believe we do, to make this day as full as we can. Whether in grief, in joy or in between.
This doesn't render the future useless, on the contrary. Jesus was a moment-liver, but he also had a specific purpose and road to walk. Our futures are built on all of our todays. If you don’t grab it and live it, your future will be built with a lot of hollow bricks: empty todays.
In the fist chapter of his book, Mark writes about an amazing day that Jesus had. As far as ministry is concerned, it was a standout and beyond successful. If Jesus had a PR guy, he would have been thrilled with it. It was the Sabbath, and it started off like any other ordinary Sabbath. Jesus went up to the Synagogue to teach, but what flowed out from that was nothing short of miraculous.
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