I am a Christian and so I pray regularly. Often I pray using the Lord’s Prayer, which you are probably aware of if you are reading this article.
One line in this prayer that always makes me think is “Give us today our daily bread”.
This line asks God to make sure we are properly fed. It also asks us to live in the present moment, as today we only need today’s bread.
It does not mention either the future or the past. Today is the only day we can possibly live, we will have to deal with tomorrow, tomorrow and the past has happened so is beyond our influence.
Another quote from Jesus is John 6:34: “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
Here, Jesus reinforces his exhortations to live today and only today. This verse does not mean that we should not plan for the future, but we should only consider what we can do today, which may be planning or taking out insurance for the future.
What it does mean is that we should only think about what we can do today and we should not stress about events that may happen in the future or have already happened. It is always true that we can only deal with what happens when it happens.
The difficulty is noticing when we start worrying about the past or the future.
If you notice yourself thinking about the past or the future, then make a decision to come back to the present.
This is hard, but if you keep on being aware of your thoughts, it does get easier over time to identify when you are not living today and then bring your awareness back to today.
Geoff Peck from Woosehill Church, writing on behalf of Churches Together in Wokingham
