Posts Tagged: Matthew 6:34

“Boasting about the Future and The Future of Boasting”

On August 13, 2023 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

“Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.” (A quote attributed to many different folks including Niels Bohr and Yogi Berra.)

“Prov. 27:1 ¶ Do not boast about tomorrow,

                        for you do not know what a day may bring.” (English Standard Version)

There is no future in boasting about the future. Why? The author of Proverbs 27:1 makes explicit what most of us know but often ignore. And what is that? None of us knows anything about the future—personally or collectively. We may guess and hypothesize, but we all need to be radically agnostic about the future. And how can we boast about something when we are so horribly ignorant about it? The short answer is we can’t! Or, at least, we shouldn’t.

Derek Kidner comments on Proverbs 27:1, “James 4:13–16 enlarges on this, and Matthew 6:34 (19–34) on the companion sin of worry. Both are rectified by an embracing of the present will of God: cf. Psalm 37:3.”

And what does Psalm 37:3 say? Glad that you asked!

“Psa. 37:3 ¶    Trust in the LORD, and do good;

                        dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.”

Embracing the present will of God is the best way to prepare for a good future. Neither boasting about the future nor worrying about it will change it or prepare us to meet it. But embracing the present will of God for us is the best way to have a good present and an optimal future.

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“Today House”

On April 17, 2020 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

Matt. 6:34: “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

A friend and accountability partner acknowledged that he was “. . . tired of being quarantined.”  Who of us is not tired of being quarantined, I wonder?  Honesty is a key component of accountability (and friendship), so it was good that he admitted what is real for him.  He is also determined to be grateful today.

After I read my friend’s post, my mind jumped immediately to an incredibly sad Adam-12 rerun I was watching yesterday on Me TV.  A petty criminal had gotten out of prison.  He was an old and broken man who just wanted “to go home.”  When a police officer asked him where home was for him, he said, “Prison.”  The police officer who had arrested him the last time the old guy went to prison tried to get the con into a halfway house that was called “Today House.”

One of the police officers who went to check out the halfway house asked the man who was in charge about the name of the place, “Today House”.  The man (who himself had been in prison) replied, “Oh, that comes from a common saying in prisons: “Don’t worry about tomorrow; just try to get through today.”

Good counsel!  I am doing pretty well with my own quarantine.  That is because I live in Today House.  I hope you are too.

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