Don't Brag About Tomorrow

“Don't brag about tomorrow, since you don't know

what the day will bring”.

Proverbs 27:1

Yesterday, we remembered as a nation the 9th anniversary of the tragic events of September 11th, 2001. That will be a day that I will never forget. I was ministering at a church in New Jersey that morning as I heard the news of the first plane crashing into the World Trade Center. I immediately ran next door to the youth pastor's home and watched the events unfold on TV. As the day continued the news got worse as I learned that some people whom I knew, some whom I had just seen the day before in church were in those buildings. It would be days before we knew the hard truth that some would never return. As I drove back in forth to work for several days the reality hit me like a ton of bricks as I passed the parking lot by the train station to NYC only to see cars that did not move and would be later towed away, the owners never to return.

A couple of weeks later after talking with a member of the worship team who got out alive, I was reminded of the loose way we have to hold on to things in this life. How we cannot, as the bible says, boast about tomorrow, because we don't know what the next moment will bring.

I've never seen people pull together, fill churches, look out for others the way that I saw people respond during that time. As my sister in-law walked across the bridge from Manhattan into New Jersey from the Empire State building, people were waiting there just to offer rides to perfect strangers. The amazing thing about this event is what seemingly happened just five to six months later. When the dust settled and the danger didn’t seem eminent, people began to go back to normal and life their lives like before, not remembering the unsure nature of tomorrow.

How would you live your life if you knew that today was your last day on earth? More than that, how would you live it if you knew that your life would end in a tragic way that would affect your family for the rest of their lives? Would you talk differently? Would you make different decisions? Would you spend more time with them? If you knew you would be in the presence of Jesus tomorrow, would you try and get to know Him better before you see Him? If you knew that you’d be entering into eternity tomorrow, would you want to firm up where you’d be spending it?

Truth be told, the guarantee of the state of our lives today is no different than it was for those men, women and children in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania in 2006 before the first plane struck. None of us knows what tomorrow will bring, and with that in mind we should live each day, each moment to it’s full, in a way that is pleasing to the Lord so that what ever moment here we enter a timeless eternity, our Lord will greet us with a huge “well-done!”

As you worship today, take this moment and express your praise to Him like it was your last, and if it is, wonderful, if not praise Him even more. If you are blessed to be here tomorrow, take a moment and remember all that you have to be thankful for and tell those that you can things that you should and that you might not be able to tell them tomorrow.