today

See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction.  For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.

Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him.  For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. (Deuteronomy 30:15-16, 19-20)


This was my reading from scripture this morning.  What a challenge!  It is so incredibly easy to let today get away from me if I am not paying careful attention.  And then, before I know it, several todays have gotten away from me with it, and I have lost a week, or a month.  So I was incredibly grateful to hear these words from Deuteronomy that remind me that today the choice is mine.  I can choose life with God and all that it entails (loving him, listening to his voice, holding fast to him), or I can choose to let circumstances, moods, busyness, or chaos determine how I will live this day.  Recognizing both the choice and the choosing is key for me.  I can intentionally choose to follow Him today, or I can allow allow the day to sweep me away in some trace-like state of being that is void of any intention or direction.  The choice is clear, I can, today, live my life (in the best possible sense), or I can let my life live me.  I don't know about you, but I'm choosing life.


How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.  What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing.  A schedule defends from chaos and whim.  It is a net for catching days.  It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time.  A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order--willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living.
                                                                                          ~Annie Dillard