Do you ever re-think the day? Reflect back on what you did, or did not, do? And have you wondered what it would be like if you could travel back in time, even for just a few hours, to live some moment differently?
As I reflected on that, I wondered how amazing it would be to have the ability to travel back, in my own past, to redo moments that I had not lived in well. To “un-say” something that was said. To reach out in care where I had simply walked away, thinking I was too busy. To pray for another instead of just speaking my own mind. To pause and listen, to read a bit more slowly, to notice the evidence of God’s grace.
Although I don’t have this imagined wonderful power of time travel, I came to see that I might not have to have such a gift to live each moment well.
What if I stepped into every moment, every encounter, every day with the kind of attentiveness that Jesus had?
Jesus explained something about how he lived every day when he said, “The Father is working, and I am working” (John 5:17). He elaborated, saying, that he did nothing of his own initiative; he was simply stepping into whatever the Father wanted for him (5:19). It probably never crossed the mind of Jesus to consider going back for a day or for an hour to live some moment differently, because he was always living each moment in the Father, for the Father, leaning into the Father.
This is why, at the end of his earthly ministry, Jesus could delight in having accomplished all the Father had given him to do (John 17:4). There were no regrets about moments not lived well.
So, not having the ability to travel back in time to redo moments I did not live well, I wonder if I actually have something better. I could, like Jesus, attend to the voice of the Father and rest in the sustaining power of the Spirit and, not doing anything of my own initiative, I might just be able to live into today . . . without any backwards glance when the day comes to a close.