But this one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things. Philippians 3:13-15

How many days of 2017 did you and I really live? How many days did we live out, rather than exist through? Or did we wander the corridors of the unchangeable past? How many days did we live within, rather than obsessing over tomorrow’s potential problems?

Or maybe it’s just pace. We can live fully alive, aware, and appreciative of all the moments we are experiencing, or at frantic pace, or glued to our phones, tablets, or TVs?

Don’t get me wrong, we can’t be 100% present all the time. Life in our world doesn’t allow very many people that luxury. But all the same, it’s easy to get distracted and lose days and weeks without coming up for air…without taking a fresh look at living…and we end up reacting rather than living.

Especially in the Christian faith that has historically championed discipline and duty, we can get so spun in on the tasks at hand that we lose track of what really matters. Family, friends…doing things that are rewarding, something fun – something fully today.

The Apostle Paul had found the key to living today. For all the ways he could commend himself, he knew his value was not in his past achievements. For all the ways he could obsess over his past failures, he didn’t do that, either. Considering his bleak future, he could have obsessed on that. And as for his present circumstances, he wrote today’s verses from a miserable jail cell.

Yet Paul seemed to live every day to its fullest. “My heart overflows with joy …” He writes in the following chapter, “for I have learned to be satisfied in any circumstance. I know what it means to lack, and I know what it means to experience overwhelming abundance. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation …I can do all this through him who gives me strength.” (Phil 4:10-13).

Paul could live out today in victory because he found that the strength of Jesus’ explosive power permeating him, enabling him to conquer every difficulty and live contented whether things were going his way or not.

Most of us are aware that we are not living every day to its fullest. We know that there has to be a better way than the way we are going. We yearn for that extreme and thrilling life that Jesus promises. “I have come that they might have life, and that they might have it abundantly” (Jn 10:10).

This abundant is for you and for me. And it’s for today, not “someday”.

More on this next time.