Living One Day at a Time
From the Series—Transitions
October 31, 2002One of my favorite movie scenes is Ben Stiller’s pre-dinner prayer in the movie Meet the Parents. He awkwardly finished his prayer by saying, “May we see thee more clearly, love thee more dearly, and follow thee more nearly.” And then he added the tagline, “day by day by day by day.” I almost fell out of my theater seat! But what’s really funny is that several months after watching the movie I was reading a book titled Inner Compass and discovered that Ben Stiller’s prayer is a real prayer. It was originally written by Richard Chichester and is popular in Ignatian prayer circles. Of course, Stiller added an extra “day by day” to “day by day.” I actually like Stiller’s version better because it gives double emphasis to the “day by day” nature of our walk with Christ.
All laughter aside, there is a profound spiritual truth in that “day by day” tagline: we are designed to live one day at a time. “Day by day” is a biblical catchphrase. Nehemiah 9:19 says, “The pillar of cloud led them forward day by day. Psalm 110:3, “Your strength shall be renewed day by day like morning dew.” Luke 11:3 says, “Give us day by day our daily bread.” And II Corinthians 4:16 says, “Outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.”
We are designed to live “day by day.” Jesus put it this way in Matthew 6:34. “Don’t be anxious about tomorrow. God will take care of your tomorrow. Live one day at a time.”
What does that have to do with transitions? The toughest thing about transitions is the fact that everything is up in the air. Transitions are full of uncertainty and uncertainty breeds anxiety. And if we aren’t careful we can start worrying about tomorrow and stop living today.
Day-Tight Compartments
In his book, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, Dale Carnegie tells a story about a medical student named William Osler. William was extremely anxious about his future--graduating from school, starting a practice, making a living. He was working himself into a nervous breakdown when he came across the writings of Sir Thomas Carlyle. Thomas Carlyle wrote and William Osler read these words, “Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.” Those words revolutionized Osler’s life. He stopped worrying and started living. William Osler went on to become the most famous physician of his generation. He organized the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and became Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford. He was even knighted by the King of England.
In an address he gave at Yale University, Osler told the students that he owed his success to a simple principle. He called it “living in day-tight compartments.” Osler said we need to let go of “dead yesterdays” and “unborn tomorrows.” He said, “The load of tomorrow, added to that of yesterday, carried today, makes the strongest falter.”
Degree of Presence
Before we look at how to live in day-tight compartments, let me tell you the end goal. I think God wants us to be fully-present. William James said that most of us are “half-awake.” C.S. Lewis said that most of us are “half-hearted.” In a recent evotional, The Life, I said that most of us are “half-alive.” Let me add one more to the mix. I think most of us are “half-present.”
In his book, The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle talks about “degree of presence.” Have you ever had a conversation with someone and you get the feeling that they’re listening but they aren’t really listening? Or you’re with them but it doesn’t really feel like they are there? I think we all know intuitively that you can be someplace physically, but be a million miles away mentally or emotionally or spiritually. You aren’t fully present.
“Degree of presence” has huge implications when it comes to worship. I think most of us have been through a worship experience where we were 100% present--totally engaged mentally and emotionally and spiritually. But we’ve also sung words while thinking about something that happened last week or something that is going to happen next week. One study has shown that after you sing a song thirty times you no longer think about the words. And we end up “going through the motions.”
Luke 10 is a great window on “degree of presence.” Martha was getting ready for a dinner party with Jesus and it says she was “distracted” by all the preparations. And Jesus says to Martha, “You are worried and upset about many things.”
I think most of us are half-present because we’re “distracted” or “worried” or “upset” about something that has happened or might happen, instead of living one day at a time. As Jesus observed in Matthew 6:34, “Each day has enough trouble of it’s own.” We need to take it one day at a time!
Dead Yesterdays
In Matthew 5:23, Jesus says, “If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother, then come and offer your gift.” That word reconciled means “to bring closure.” We close the books on something.
A few years ago I read a story about a man named Jimmy Calkins. Jimmy attended a conference and the facilitator asked every attendee to take out a piece of paper and make a list of anything in their past they regretted or felt ashamed about. Everybody made their list, including Jimmy Calkins, and the facilitator challenged the participants to reconcile whatever was listed on their page.
Jimmy Calkins said, “While making my list, I remembered an incident from high school. I grew up in a small town in Iowa. There was a sheriff in town that none of us kids liked. One night, my two buddies and I decided to play a trick on Sheriff Brown. After drinking a few beers, we found a red can of paint, climbed the tall water tower in the middle of town, and wrote something about Sheriff Brown that I cannot repeat. The next day, the whole town saw our sign written in red paint. Within two hours, Sheriff Brown had the three of us in his office. My two friends confessed, but I lied, denying the truth. No one ever found out. Nearly 20 years later, Sheriff Brown’s name appears on my list.”
Jimmy Calkins didn’t know if Sheriff Brown was still alive, but he called information back in his hometown in Iowa. He got a listing for Roger Brown and he dialed the number. Someone picked up the phone and said, “Hello.” Jimmy Calkins said, “Sheriff Brown?” After a long pause, the man on the other side of the line said, “Yes.” Jimmy said, “Sheriff Brown, this is Jimmy Calkins and I just want you to know that I did it.” After another long pause, Sheriff Brown said, “I knew it!”
Jimmy Calkins said, “The two of us had a good laugh and talked for a few minutes, but I’ll never forget his final words. He said, ‘Jimmy, I always felt badly for you because your buddies got it off their chests, and I knew you were carrying it around all these years. I want to thank you for calling for your sake’!”
I think one reason why some of us aren’t 100% present is because of something that happened in the past. We can’t seem to let go of a hurt. We can’t seem to forget the pain or forgive the person who caused it. We have unresolved anger or disappointment or guilt. And it eats away at us. We repress it, but it’s like trying to keep a beach ball under the surface of the water, eventually it’s going to resurface and it usually pops up when we least expect it.
Have you ever gotten really mad about something really small? You had unresolved anger and the beach ball resurfaced. It is the cumulative effect--if you have unresolved anger it just builds up pressure until eventually you pop.
Ephesians 4:26 is some of the best advice in the Bible. It says, “Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry.” In other words, don’t let anger go unresolved. The next verse says, “Settle matters quickly.”
We need to learn to let go so yesterday’s problems don’t carry over into today. And the truth is: there is nothing we can do about what happened in the past. I love Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey. One of my favorites is about letting go. Jack Handey says, “If you drop your keys in a river of molten lava, let ‘em go man, cause they’re gone.” Sometimes we just need to let go!
Jesus didn’t live in the past. He said the woman caught in adultery, “Go and sin no more.” He didn’t rehash the past.
How do we let go? You reconcile. You seek forgiveness or offer forgiveness. Forgiveness breaks the cycle. It brings closure. And it helps us be 100% present so we can live today to the fullest.
Unborn Tomorrows
Jesus said, “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” Worry is wasted energy! You spend today’s energy on something that might or might not happen tomorrow. The French Philosopher Montainge said, “My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.”
Last week I was at a conference in Atlanta and I got a phone message informing me that an influential neighbor might oppose our efforts to rezone a piece of property. We have dreamed about a coffeehouse on Capitol Hill for years. We’ve purchased the piece of property. We’ve put money into environmental tests and architectural drawings. We have a lot riding on this. So when I heard the news that someone was opposing the rezoning effort, I was angry and anxious. It knocked the wind out of me!
But I realized I had a choice to make. Let “what might happen” ruin the conference I was at. Or enjoy the conference I was at and make a decision not to worry about “what might not happen.”
I Peter 5:7 is one of my favorite verses. It says, “Cast all your cares upon me for I care for you.” We have a choice: carry our cares or cast our cares. I must have thought of that neighbor dozens of times in the next 24 hours and each time I made a choice to cast my cares upon the Lord.
The When/Then Syndrome
Eckhart Tolle says, “Stress is caused by being ‘here,’ but wanting to be ‘there,’ being in the present but wanting to be in the future.” Too many of us fall into the when/then trap. We’ll be happy when some arbitary “this or that” happens. But that’s not true. When/Then happiness is a mirage.
When I first started pastoring, I dreamed of a church that was impacting thousands of people. I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong with that dream if it’s God-given. But I think sometimes it’s an ego thing. In every occupation there are comparison points. In pastoral circles--and there are lots of psychological problems in pastoral circles--the size of church is sometimes equated with the value of pastor. The bigger the church the better you feel. The smaller the church the more insignificant you feel.
Our first year we averaged 25 people. And I remember coming to a point where I had to make a conscious decision. It was a defining moment for me. I realized that I could be unhappy until the church reached some “arbitrary” number at some “indefinite” time in the future. Or I could to love pastoring a church of 25 people. And I decided that I was going to enjoy every phrase we go through as a church. And I have enjoyed pastoring a church of 25 and 50 and 100 and 250 and 500. And I’ll continue enjoying every stage because I refuse to live in the future. I choose to live now and enjoy every today God gives me.
Some of you are stressed out because you’re “here” when you want to be “there.” You are in the “present” when you want to be in the “future.” Maybe “here” is working as a congressional staffer and “there” is being an elected member of Congress. I don’t doubt that some of you have that dream and that in some cases that dream will be fulfilled, but if you don’t learn to love life now you won’t love life then. Here’s the danger we face: we focus so much on tomorrow that we never live today. Eckhart Tolle says, “It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living.”
I think some of us have “the grass is greener on the other side” mentality. But we need to learn to live in the moment God has given us. And that’s tough during times of transitions because we usually aren’t where we want to be. But as Eckhart Tolle says, we need to “realize deeply that the present moment is all we’ll ever have.” He says, “Nothing ever happened in the past; it happened in the Now. Nothing will ever happen in the future; it will happen in the Now.”
In Exodus 3:5 God says to Moses, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” We’ve heard the story so many times that the most obvious lesson is overlooked. Here it is: the “holy ground” wasn’t the Promised Land. The “holy ground” was right where Moses was standing!
Don’t be so focused on the Promised Land that you never take off your sandals and recognize that God wants you to experience Him in the “here and now.” Even if you’re in the middle of a transition and the ground is shifting underneath you, you’re standing on holy ground.