Prayer on Balancing Future and Present

Read Matthew 6:25-34.
²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? ²⁷ And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? ²⁸ And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, ²⁹ yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. ³⁰ But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? ³¹ Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ ³² For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. ³³ But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
³⁴ “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

                I have no desire to live each day as if there will be no tomorrow or each year as if there will be no next year.  I want tomorrow to be better, rather than worse, because of the way I live today; I want next year to be better, rather than worse, because of the way I live this year.  I need to consider the future, spiritually, mentally, physically and financially.

                Nevertheless, sometimes, Lord, my problem is not that I cheat the future by the way I focus on the present.  Sometimes my problem is the opposite of that: I cheat the present by the way I think about the future.  I make today too much of a stepping-stone to tomorrow, and too little an end in itself.  Sometimes it seems as if I am always only preparing to live, as if later, when I have completed all my preparing and all the conditions are right, I will be ready to begin to live.  However, what makes me think I will ever feel the time is right, if I do not drink from my cup of life now?  What makes me think I will ever find love, laughter and joy, if I do not find them in what I have now?

                Keep reminding me, Lord, that I can have a kind of living for the moment that is thrifty, not extravagant.  Keep reminding me that life is not delaying its arrival until tomorrow or next year, when I have more money or when the children are more settled.  Life has already arrived; it is here, and I am in it.

                No matter how filled with duties today may be, keep me from being so grimly single-minded that I am blind to its beauty and deaf to its music.  Let me leave a little room in it for doing something simply because it gives me pleasure.  Amen.