Today matters.

It's hard to convince a 25 year old that putting away $50 a week can add up to a significant amount. But if he does just that, assuming a 6% average return on his investment, he will have around $500, 000 in his account at age 65! OK, I'm not an investment counselor and my point is not really about dollars but about the power of small, but consistent choices that are made over time.

A life lived well is an accumulation of days lived well! It isn't the single stellar moment that makes a life. Rather it is the consistent choices, made day after day, that add up to a life worth remembering. Are you waiting for your 'big break?' Are you letting one day after another slip away into history while you sit on the sidelines waiting for something to happen? That is the tragedy of many lives. Instead of taking the opportunities that are available to do something good, people wait.... and wait ... and wait. Little do they realize that, like the blink of an eye, 25 years will disappear over the horizon of time. Then, too, there are those who choose to waste the present. They're going to do something different, 'tomorrow.' So they spend week after week, watching the same boring TV, avoiding responsibility as much as possible, waiting for tomorrow, which never comes. In contrast are those who set goals, who determine to use their days to make a difference. They keep investing themselves in life on a daily basis, creating a memorable life in the process.

The film, Saving Private Ryan, released in 1998, open with a scene of a old man walking slowly across a field of white crosses marking graves of soldiers. When he finds that of Captain Miller, he falls to his knees and remembers the captain's dying words spoken years ago at the end of a desperate firefight. As Miller died, he challenged Ryan to live in an honorable way so that the sacrifices of those who saved him would matter. The old man, James Ryan, turns to his wife and wonders aloud if he is a good man, if he's lived well.

Sooner than you or I realize, we will be nearing the end of this earthly stay. Like the fictional James Ryan we will wonder, "Did it count? Have I lived well?" How we answer that will depend on two things - would we choose as the measure of success and our daily choices. Hugh Hefner, he of Playboy fame, turned 80 this year. He's spent his life in pursuit of sex and money. A succession of blondes whose attention was purchased with his fortune have shared his bed. Many silly men envy the life he's built on exploitation of women. I wonder what Hugh thinks? I wonder if he ever realizes that he's accumulated a treasure of fool's gold? He, too, came to the place in life he now occupies, one choice at time, beginning more than 50 years ago. Even if he feels little regret now as a result of a scarred conscience, he will face God not too far into the future and answer for his hedonism.

There's another famous man who decided to take a very different road in life right around the same time as Hefner, near the same place in America, the city of Chicago. That man decided to give away his life to tell a simple life-changing story, again and again, to as many people as possible around the world. Billy Graham, the renowned evangelist, whose is now in his mid-80's, started talking about Jesus. His team, which he kept around him for decades, committed themselves to each other and their lives to integrity. They remained faithful to their spouses and chose to handle the fame and wealth that came their way responsibly and with integrity - day after day. Best of all, they stayed faithful to Christ Jesus.

Today matters! The old cliché reminds us that 'today is the first day of the rest of your life.' It may be clichéd but it's true.
So make a difference, starting today. With the counsel of the Spirit and the Scripture, choose the path of the righteous, and then walk it - consistently, day after day. I can make this guarantee - you'll never live to regret it!

Here's a word from the Word for today. "This is the only race worth running. I’ve run hard right to the finish, believed all the way. All that’s left now is the shouting—God’s applause! Depend on it, he’s an honest judge. He’ll do right not only by me, but by everyone eager for his coming. " (2 Timothy 4:7-8, The Message)