Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today.
Will Rogers
Great thought, isn’t it? I try to hang these thought provoking, attitude adjusting signs around the office, mainly for myself and so others can hold me to it. I’m hopeful that it might brighten the day for some and offer some small encouragement to others. This sign has been up for about six weeks. I see it every day, about 36 times, as I go to the first floor. I’m the one that posted it, walked by it about 1,080 times, and still didn’t actually understand it until yesterday. Well, I’ll be a buffalo.
Do your yesterdays take up too much of your today? My yesterdays take up way too much of my time. For that matter, my tomorrows do too! Here’s the thing about yesterdays – they are over! Done. Yesterday is dead and gone. We can’t go back. We can’t do over. We can’t change them.
Oh, how we’d like to sometimes, that’s why our yesterdays take up so much of our todays. Those situations where we didn’t do what we were supposed to do and we did do what we weren’t supposed to do. Those Paulish things. Like when the jaws of life have to be used to remove my foot from my mouth, repeatedly, or when I pass by and over a hurting one, repeatedly. Those thoughts are like records, yep, I’m that old. If we allow them to, those yesterday moments play over and over in our minds. What a waste of a good moment. A moment that can never be gotten back.
How much time do we really waste in our yesterdays? Thoughts of those delightful things of yesterday and thoughts of those regretful things of yesterday? You see, we can waste just as much time on the delightful. What, you say? True, I say. Haven’t you ever had such a delightful experience that you’ve dwelt on so much that the experience gets skewed a little in our minds? I have. What ends up happening is that my mind blows it so out of proportion, that my current day, nor any day to come could ever live up to the unicorns and cotton candy.
Same is true for regretful experiences. Why do those seem to play more often and much louder in our minds than the delightful moments? Shoulda, coulda, woulda’s. Why’s? If’s?
If we are not on our guard, the regretful experiences can outweigh the delightful experiences and the delightful experiences can cause us to be out of touch with reality. It’s really a balancing act. Do we really want to be stuck in the past anyway? The reality is that the past is never as great as it’s remembered and it’s never as awful as it’s remembered.
If I spent as much time on my todays as I do rehashing my yesterday’s today, I’d have more time in my todays to do what I’m supposed to be doing today, without being stuck in yesterday!?!?
In her book Jesus Calling, Sarah Young says:
Rehearsing your troubles results in experiencing them many times, whereas you are meant to go through them only when they actually occur. Do not multiply your suffering in this way!
That’s profound. You see, we do rehearse, don’t we? But, when we are rehearsing, when we dwell, when we dramatize, the time spent on living today is spent on living in a yesterday that’s already been lived and we just can’t be used by God. Why? Because yesterday is our idol, good or bad. We can only have one thing or one person to worship. God.
He’s the One who separated the days. They are not continuous. Every day is a new day.
Together these made up one day. Genesis 1:4
This happened on the second day. Genesis 1:8
This all happened on the third day. Genesis 1:13
This all happened on the fourth day. Genesis 1:19
This all happened on the fifth day. Genesis 1:23
This all happened on the sixth day. Genesis 1:31
God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy. Genesis 2:3
Every day is separate, distinct. Every day different. Every day a new creation. Every day new mercies.
Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each day.
Lamentations 3:23
The Lord said don’t look to the past, look to the future. I am the Lord. I made a dry path through the sea. I drew the armies beneath the waves.
But forget all that – it is nothing compared to what I am going to do.
Isaiah 43:18
Forget the former stuff. Move on. Don’t live in the past hurts, past disobediences, past fears, the past waves. Live in today. Live expectantly. Stop rehearsing the past.
I—yes, I alone—am the one who blots out your sins for my own sake and will never think of them again. Isaiah 43:25
If God does not rehearse our yesterdays, and He would have every right to – I mean, He’s God, why should we? Our pasts are nothing compared to what our futures can be. Don’t let your yesterday interfere with what God has in store for you today. Onward! Forward! Upward!
This is the day the Lord has made.
We will rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118:24