Often I think I’d like to garden, to grow beautiful flowers or a nice crop of vegetables. It hasn’t happened yet… I think it might be because I am a little (read: VERY) busy during peak season for gardening.

From what I gather, a garden takes work: planning, ground preparations, planting, weeding, watering, troubleshooting insects, more weeding, more feeding, even more weeding, harvesting, taking care of the harvest, cleaning out the garden… and begin again.

And then there is the chance that the weather will be awful, the ground not the right acidity, the parasites too plentiful… and that hoped-for garden falls short of the mark.

I have seen this quote floating around facebook-land:

“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.”

Even though I don’t garden I can feel the truth of that quote. And I can see that idea lived out in many other areas of my life.

So much of what we do is truly focused on the hopes of tomorrow, done because we believe in tomorrow. Even our day to day tasks of washing laundry or dishes is done because we believe tomorrow will come and when it does we’d sure like fresh clothes to wear and clean dishes on which to eat!

The impact of our belief in tomorrow goes beyond the “mundane” and extends into how we cultivate friendships, strive to educate ourselves, spend/save our money and how we raise the next generations. So much of our faith is founded on the belief in tomorrow, even in a tomorrow beyond this life! It is the reason we share the gospel message: so that others may know the love, redemption and salvation that comes through Christ.

Yet, sometimes we are so future-focused that we are presently-oblivious. Whether it is letting the daily cleaning prevent us from enjoying the beauty of the sunset or allowing studying for an important test to keep us from having a good conversation with a close friend. Often the impact is even bigger than that… sometimes our fears of tomorrow keep us from living today.

One of my favorite quotes says, “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” (said by Gandalf in The Fellowship of the Ring. I am a BIG J.R.R. Tolkien fan.)

And how true that rings in my life right now.

Not yesterday, it has passed. Not tomorrow, it hasn’t yet come to be…

Today.

The book of Ecclesiastes reminds me how there is a time for everything. Sometimes, I need to be reminded that the time I am given is right now and I need to live in it.

So how about it, what will you do with the time given you?

~Jillene