Friday Fight 272: When Yesterday Enters the Room

Every Friday morning, during my quiet time with the Lord, He faithfully places something on my heart that speaks to the subtle, internal battles many of us face. This is Friday Fight 272.

When Yesterday Enters the Room:

Have you ever had a perfectly ordinary moment produce an emotion that seems disproportionate to what is happening? Someone says something innocent, a door closes, a phone doesn't ring, or a familiar situation unfolds—and suddenly your heart responds as though you are back in a painful moment from years ago. Nothing from yesterday is actually happening today, yet somehow yesterday has walked into the room with you.

Thoughts bombard our minds… What if it happens again? What if I get hurt? What if this turns out just like the last time? Before we realize it, we aren't simply experiencing today. We are carrying yesterday into today while trying to live tomorrow before it ever arrives.

In working with people, I've noticed how often our emotions can reveal where our thoughts have traveled. Sometimes what we are feeling is connected to something that happened before. Other times, our emotions are responding to something we fear might happen in the future. The situation in front of us may be completely different, yet our hearts respond as though the past is repeating itself—or the future has already come.

The emotion we feel is real. But the emotion may not be telling us the whole truth about the present.

This is where I have found myself thinking about something as simple as grammar.

One unexpected way God has taught me spiritual lessons has been through things I have encountered in the classroom. Teaching grammar has reminded me that tense tells us so much about time. A verb can communicate something that has already happened, something happening now, or something that has yet to happen. Our thoughts can do something very similar.

We can spend our emotional energy looking backward at what happened or looking forward to what might happen. And somewhere between those two places is the only moment we can actually live: today.

The past has already happened.

The future has not happened yet.

But today is where we are.

The writer of Lamentations understood the pain of looking at circumstances that were anything but easy. Yet in the middle of that suffering, he deliberately turned his attention toward God's character. “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” — Lamentations 3:22-23

What strikes me about these words is that the writer didn't say God's mercies were new. He said they are new.

Today.

Not yesterday's mercy.

Not tomorrow's mercy.

Today's mercy.

This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it!

Nothing about our past is hidden from God. He knows what happened yesterday and what will happen tomorrow. He knows our wounds, the relationships that changed us, and the moments we wish we could rewrite. He isn't asking us to pretend those things didn't happen, but reminds us that His mercy today is new. Yesterday may explain part of my story, and tomorrow may hold part of my journey, but God's mercy is waiting for me today.

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In His Grace,

Pastor Shannon

NEWLIFE Calvert

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