By Benorie Benjamin-Bede
Looking back now, I realise that what overwhelmed me the most was not necessarily what I was experiencing at the time, but everything I had convinced myself would happen because of it. I was suffering from my present circumstances, certainly, but I was also suffering from a future I had already imagined, a future that seemed so certain and so unfavourable that merely thinking about it left me wondering whether there would ever be a way out. And that,
I eventually realised, was where I had been making a terrible mistake. I was using the circumstances of one particular day to determine what my life would look like in six months, in one year, or even several years from then. Of course, when I considered everything happening to me at that moment, it seemed perfectly reasonable to conclude that things would only get worse. After all, what evidence did I have that anything would change? But there was something I had completely overlooked in all those frightening calculations, something so simple that I wonder now how I had failed to consider it.Between the day I was living and the future I was afraid of, there were hundreds of days I had not yet experienced.
I did not know whom I would meet during those days, what opportunities might become available, what circumstances might change, what conversations might alter the direction of my life, or what unexpected kindness might reach me when I needed it most. I had no idea what God might do within that interval, yet somehow, I had already decided what the outcome would be. I was treating a future filled with possibilities I could not possibly account for as though it were a conclusion I had already witnessed.
It was during that period that I began telling myself something which eventually became a personal mantra: Get through today. Whenever my thoughts began wandering towards the difficulties waiting for me next week, next month, or next year, I would remind myself to get through today first. Not because those difficulties were imaginary or unimportant, and certainly not because I had stopped caring about what would become of my life, but because I was beginning to understand that worrying about a day that had not yet come was taking away the strength I needed for the day I was actually living.
And there was another possibility I had never seriously considered. What if the very thing I would need to survive next week was something I was supposed to discover today? What if, in my desperation to figure out how I would get through the coming months, I became so distracted that I failed to recognise the help, the opportunity, or even the smallest decision that could change everything? I could spend an entire day worrying about a problem that might arise next month, only to overlook something happening that very day which might eventually make that problem easier to face.
So I began giving each day the attention it deserved. I would ask myself what I could do with the strength, knowledge, and resources available to me at that moment. Whatever I could do, I would do. Whatever remained beyond my ability, I would leave until I had a better understanding of what was required. And whenever tomorrow began demanding more of me than today could reasonably provide, I would return to those familiar words: Get through today. When tomorrow comes, we will see what we can do about tomorrow. It was only later that I recognised how closely this little practice resembled something I had prayed countless times without fully considering its meaning.
“Give us this day our daily bread.” Matthew 6:11.
I began to understand something about those words that I had previously overlooked. There is a kind of trust involved in asking God for what we need today without demanding that He reveal everything we will need tomorrow. It does not mean that we should never prepare for the future, or that every problem will somehow disappear if we stop thinking about it. It means that we do not have to carry the entire weight of an uncertain future in order to take responsibility for the present. And perhaps this is why Jesus also tells us not to worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will have its own concerns. There is already enough to contend with in one day without gathering the troubles of several days that have not yet happened and attempting to survive all of them at once.
I wish I could say that everything became better immediately after I began living this way. It did not. There were still difficult mornings, frightening uncertainties, unanswered questions, and moments when even getting through a single day required more strength than I thought I possessed. But something changed in the way I experienced those difficulties. Life became a little easier to face, not necessarily because my circumstances had improved, but because I had stopped asking myself to survive an entire year before I had finished living one day. I no longer needed to know exactly how everything would turn out before allowing myself to experience a little peace. I could acknowledge that things were difficult without concluding that they would always remain difficult. I could be uncertain about tomorrow without deciding that tomorrow would be terrible. Most importantly, I began to understand that what is happening to me today is not sufficient evidence of everything that will happen to me tomorrow.
So, whatever you are going through, whatever you fear might happen in the coming weeks or months, I hope you remember that there are still days between where you are and where you are afraid you might end up. Days you have not lived, people you have not met, opportunities you have not encountered, and possibilities you cannot presently imagine. I cannot promise that every one of those days will bring good news, or that everything you are praying for will happen exactly as you hope. But neither can your present circumstances tell you everything that those days will contain. And when everything becomes too much, when your thoughts begin racing towards a future that frightens you, return to the one day you actually have the opportunity to live. Get through today. And when tomorrow comes, we will think about how to get through that one, too.
