Wait. What?!

You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking on this SoundCloud link.

Would you like to guess when I took this picture? It was January 2nd. Christmastide hadn’t even ended! I know I’m not the only one who is bothered by how consumerism rushes us from one season to the next. But, if we’re honest, many of us do this to ourselves anyway, don’t we?

How often are we not fully present to our current season because of wanting the next thing? Maybe it’s a better job or a higher income. Maybe it’s that relationship that may come along or when we finally lose that weight. The list of things we may desire to skip into the future for could be endless. And yet when we actually get the thing, we always look for the next, the next thing to give us satisfaction.

Yet, God exhorts us to be satisfied today, enjoying the season we are in, for we don’t even know what’s in our future.

 “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.”
James 4:13-14 

“But godliness with contentment is great gain.  For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.”
1 Timothy 6:6

“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. ”
Matthew 6:34

“When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider this: God has made the one as well as the other. Therefore, no one can discover anything about their future.”
Ecclesiastes 7:14

“Teach us to number our days,  that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”
Psalm 90:12 

Lord, give us grace to treat each fleeting day as precious. Help us to pass by the temptation to taste right now what is meant for another season. Open our eyes to the celebrations of this day that we may live in gratitude and contentment. 

Text and photo copyright Jennifer Brukiewa