So it is with our life as followers of Christ.  It is usually, and for some entirely, concerned with the little things of the present, and it is not difficult to see why that is.  The only time which we can call our own is the present moment.  The past is gone for ever and we are powerless to change it.  The future does not yet exist.  And so it is only by our use of the present that we can ever know Our Lord more clearly, love him more dearly and follow him more nearly.

Sometimes, however, we feel so dissatisfied with the present as to have no use for it at all and our interest is then concentrated on an imaginary future which we hope may one day materialise.  When we look at life like that we are living in a sort of interim period, and are treating the present, which is the only time that is real and that matters, as though it were a meaningless vacuum.

The unreality of such an attitude is obvious enough, and so Our Blessed Lord has with good reason told us to use what we actually have by living a day at a time (Matthew 6:34).  And St Paul similarly has told us to make the most of those opportunities for doing the will of God which God is giving us in the here and now (Ephesians 5:16) and not to let them slip, through waiting for more attractive ones which may never come.

For each day as it begins provides us with all we need to serve God as he wishes.  In the words of John Keble’s hymn:

The trivial round, the common task,
Will furnish all we need to ask;
Room to deny ourselves; a road
To bring us daily nearer God. (1)