It's almost here - Christmas I mean - that magical time especially for
children, which takes so long to arrive and which is over in a flash.
If only we could press a button like we can on a video recorder marked
'hold' and just freeze it there for a while. But come to think of
it, then, we'd become statues. We can look forward to something so
intensively that when it arrives it is anti-climax, we cannot really
enjoy it. It never quite turns out as we imagined it to be.
But don't you see? It is not only what children long to do with
Christmas, it is what we do all through our lives. We live by looking
forward, "Roll on Christmas", we say. Well it is rolling on, it will
soon be here, what now? Or we live looking back, "Ah! Those were the
days when Christmas was really Christmas," but at the time we did not
enjoy it as much as we do now in retrospect. It is really Christmas now.
The whole of our problem is centred in living NOW. To look at the future or to
live in the past is to miss living truly today. It is to use today
merely as another mirage. Someone said that the secret of success is
living in 'day-tight compartments'; live today, today. That is not an
easy thing to do, but it is well worth the effort of cultivating. So
today, instead of reading the Christmas story, (unless, of course, you
have not heard it a dozen times already this week) read what Jesus said
about living this day fully.
A joyful and blessed day to you. Now go on, live a little, NOW.