Carefully Consider Your “Today”

I mentioned recently that my dad passed away this summer.  One of the things that struck me the most about the event was how unexpected it was.  One minute I’m sitting in a Mexican restaurant eating chips and salsa and the next I’m receiving the news that my dad has had an accident and probably won’t make it.  What happened? How did this happen?

The heartbreaking truth?  My dad was leaning down looking for something in his car, misjudged his steps as he stood back up, stumbled, lost his balance, fell, and hit his head very badly.  Apparently, he managed to get back up, but then he quickly passed out and hit his head again in the second fall.

The doctor said that one of the falls caused a pontine hemorrhage which tends to be fatal, and for my dad it was.  He never did regain consciousness.  I did get the opportunity to fly out to California, but the doctors gave him no hope, and so my trip landed me in the trauma unit of ICU holding my dad’s hand as his body took its last rattling breaths after being taken off of life support.

Why do I take the time to recount this very painful and difficult experience?  It is because I learned something…actually I have learned a lot of things in all of this…but in this particular thing, I learned that life is uncertain and full of the unexpected.  None of our days, none of our tomorrow’s, are guaranteed.

Take a look here at what James has to say about this:  “Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’  Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.’  As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil.  If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.”  James 4:13-17

Very blunt and very straightforward but very true.

Today, what good do we know to do but haven’t done? Reconcile with a loved one? Share Jesus with a coworker? Tell those around us that we love them?  Let’s not be certain of our “tomorrow’s”, but carefully consider our “today”.