The Gift of Today

In the hush before the sun claims the sky,  

a single verse unfolds like dawn itself,  

soft and insistent: do not be anxious about tomorrow,  

for tomorrow will carry its own weight of care,  

and the day that is here holds trouble enough.  

Consider the sparrow on the wind's thin thread,  

wings beating without ledger or storehouse,  

no anxious tally of seeds yet to fall.  

The Father who numbers each feather's arc  

does not forget the flutter in the storm.  

Why then should the heart hoard tomorrow's shadows,  

stacking phantoms against the light of now?  

The field lily rises without toil or plan,  

petals unfurling in quiet obedience,  

clothed in splendor no king could command.  

Its beauty is not bargained from the future  

but given in the moment of its blooming.  

So the soul, too, is invited to open,  

not clenched against what may never arrive,  

but breathing the grace that arrives with the morning.  

Tomorrow waits in its own sealed chamber,  

guarded by hours not yet born.  

It will rise with its own measure of sorrow,  

its own hidden joys, its own sudden turns.  

To borrow its burdens before they knock  

is to walk twice the road of affliction,  

carrying loads that belong to another day.  

Let tomorrow shoulder what is its own;  

today asks only for the courage to meet it.  

The command is gentle yet unyielding:  

sufficient for the day is its own evil.  

Not denial of hardship, but recognition—  

life in this broken world will bruise the feet,  

will press the spirit with thorns of the ordinary.  

Yet the pressing is measured, day by measured day,  

and the hand that measures also sustains.  

Grace arrives not in bulk for a lifetime  

but fresh each sunrise, like manna on desert sand,  

enough for the steps that lie immediately ahead.  

Seek first the kingdom, the Teacher said,  

and righteousness like a river will follow.  

When the gaze lifts from the calendar's edge  

to the face that holds every edge in place,  

worry loosens its grip like frost in sunlight.  

The present becomes a place of encounter,  

not a corridor to flee through in haste,  

but a room where the Father sits waiting,  

where love speaks in the small and the now.  

So let the heart rest in this narrow span,  

the slender gift of one revolving day.  

Let plans be drawn lightly, prayers be offered deeply,  

actions taken with open and steady hands.  

Tomorrow, when it dawns, will find its provision  

already prepared by the same unchanging care  

that clothes the grass and feeds the ravens.  

And if trouble should rise like a sudden wave,  

the wave will break on the rock of faithfulness,  

and the soul will stand, not because it foresaw,  

but because it trusted the One who sees all.  

In this rhythm of release and receiving,  

the soul learns the freedom of being present—  

no longer a debtor to futures unseen,  

but a pilgrim walking the path that is given,  

step by step, day by day, under the eye  

that never sleeps, never forgets, never fails.  

Here is peace: not the absence of tomorrow's storm,  

but the certainty that grace will meet it  

when tomorrow becomes today.