Today: God's Gift to You and Me

Good morning! A few people can recall with great detail every day of their past, but they cannot change that past. Some claim to be able to see into the future, but we rightly tend to label them quacks. You and I can make plans for today, but we usually end up at the end of the day with a completely different set of results. Each day we unwrap the gift God has given to us, guessing every step of the way that we know what is in that gift. Some folks lay out their entire day in a notebook planner of some sort, and feel a certain satisfaction if the day goes exactly as planned. However you want to open the gift of today is fine, but enjoy it with God.

Each of us can recall at least some of our past. We do not get to live there, and we should make no more than brief visits. The past is done and we cannot change it. To flog the self repeatedly over past mistakes is to fail to learn from them. In Christ we seek to learn and move on, leaving the past to our Lord and living in today. Our personal future has not arrived yet and looking ahead gives a cloudy view at best. We hope to marry, or buy a house, or get a different job, or win the lottery like that now rich older lady down in Florida did yesterday, but we don't know what tomorrow may bring. Today is the gift we are given, enjoy it well.

Even the events of today are unwrapped one at a time. In 1865, a man boarded a train with his friend to visit other places. The man had led troops in the Civil War in 24 battles and survived to tell the tales, or not tell them as combat vets typically keep their silence. Yet, on this day a description of a certain presidential assassin had gone out over the wires and this war hero would be tailed, stalked, and arrested more than once before he and his friend could complete their planned journey. The man just happened to fit the description of a Mr. John Wilkes Booth to a 'T'. The first time a group appeared to arrest him for assassinating the president, the man laughed. After that, while in jail the first time, a lynch mob arrived and the humor quickly went out of the circumstance. The man was able to prove his identity and survived after word went out that the real assassin had died in a barn in Virginia.

Whatever our gift of today brings, laughter, tears, joy, peace, or sorrow, we now begin the unwrapping. Enjoy your gift of today with God.

Bucky