athletes running on track and field oval in grayscale photography

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Carpe Diem–Seize the Day!

2018 is past. We can’t change it. There’s no sense in dwelling on it, blaming it, or smugly sitting on last year’s victories.

Another year has begun. The starter pistol had sounded and we’re advancing around the track once again. As we rapidly move toward February, we look down the lane ahead and set our sights on achieving our new year’s resolutions with fresh hope.

That’s the fascinating thing about living. It’s not static–it’s ongoing. We can’t freeze time any more than we can stop from aging .(I wish!)- We can’t sit down halfway around the track and expect the finish line to come to us.

The point is to move forward, whether it’s at a sprint, a trot, a jog, a walk, a stroll or with a walker. It doesn’t matter how we move. What matters is to move. The movement is what makes life exciting because we never know what’s ahead.

We can’t stay in the past and we don’t have a clue about tomorrow. However, what we do have is Today.

We’re never too young, too old, too unskilled or too poor to forge ahead or even to start over. Even though we all come from different backgrounds, with different advantages and disadvantages there’s one thing God has given us all in equal measure: Today. It’s up to us as to what we’ll do with it.

Every morning each one of us wakes up with new mercies and 24 hours. How we choose to use that time can make all the difference. Will we choose to spend six hours vegging in front of the TV or a video game? Will we take a couple of hours to learn something new? Will we spend some time with Jesus? Will we do a good deed?

May I offer a suggestion? Don’t set your running shoes on automatic and simply go through the motions of life. Give yourself a goal and work toward it. Instead of telling yourself you “don’t feel like it today,” look at the steps toward your objective as a “no option.” For instance, when I get up in the morning it’s a “no option” whether or not to make my bed. Or before I go to bed, it’s a “no option” to brush my teeth (whether I feel like it or not.)

The writer of Hebrews puts it this way, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” (Hebrews 12:1)

We all have a race to run. The question is, when we get to the finish line, will we be able to look back on our lives and say we ran our race well?

How will you seize this day?