"We Have OnlyToday (This One Tree)"

  I made the mistake today of looking at the forest rather than the trees.    As the new year begins, I decided to look at my schedule of meetings already booked.  Three hundred and thirty five services in which I will sing and preach are on the agenda, and it usually happens that several dozen others pop up throughout the year.   I gulped, and then immediately began to feel as if I were losing my voice!  Thankfully, it was just a feeling caused by the momentary panic of, again, looking at the forest rather than the trees.  The truth of the matter is that I totally love what I do, and feel like the most blessed man on the planet to have so many opportunities to share the Lord Jesus Christ with people.  So I wasn't really hesitant, but I do still feel a little hoarse! :)   

Seriously, while we rightly plan our lives and schedules, the truth of the matter is that we have only today, with its privileges and responsibilities.  In this light, I determined to put my all into the one service scheduled for this day, and it was, at least for me, a blessed time.  I hope it was for the folks who attended the meeting.    We have only today.  I wish I understood this truth better.  I wish I remembered it more.  I wish I applied myself to this one tree, rather than to an uncertain forest.  "This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it" (Psalm 118:24).  A glance this morning at a daunting stand of woods, as it were, provided a start, and then the joyful remembrance that we can clearly focus on only one tree, this one tree.  In such light, I look with even more anticipation to a year of seeking to live each day as if it were the only day available to me.  Because it is.

We have only today, andtomorrow? Well, we may, but no promise has been given from our blessed Lord of Heavent hat this present life shall be beyond the gift of this one tree. This one tree, with its promise of a life truly lived, as our Father gives and gives to the now of this blessed time the grace of Christ, His gift all sublime. As wrote the poet of old, "The woods are lovely, dark and deep."But they cannot compare to the tree,this one tree, given by Love in this dayto you, and to me.

"That thy trust may be in the LORD, I have made known to thee this day, even to thee." (Proverbs 22:19)