Dialogue: Have faith to live one day at a time

By GARTH GEORGE

As another year (and they come round all too quickly at my age) draws to a close and a new one is about to begin, I don't think many of us will be sad to see the passing of the first year of the third millennium.

It has not been one of the best of the 60 or so I have lived through - certainly not since the events of September 11, which is destined to go down in history as one of the more nefarious landmarks of the ages of mankind.

There's not much about the year locally and nationally worth remembering, either. It has been another year in which none of our pressing social problems has been solved.

There is still too much poverty in a land of plenty; too much violence in a land once noted for the quality of its family life, culminating this month in an epidemic of brutal murders coming hard on the heels of an epidemic of gruesome child abuse.

The health system is still in disarray and unable to cope, condemning thousands to lives of pain and misery. Education is under continuing pressure brought on by pig-headed so-called educationists who insist on further diluting our system so there are no winners and losers, and by recalcitrant teachers so unhappy with their lot that they choose to strike.

The police force is still undermanned and bereft of morale, spending too much time on revenue-collection and not nearly enough on preventing and solving crime. Although I suppose the cops are wondering why they bother, considering some of the stupidly inadequate sentences handed down by an all-too-liberal Judiciary.

The Defence Force has been stripped of its principal strike and ground support capability with the scrapping of the air combat wing and we are left with a castrated Air Force, an Army plagued by political infighting and a Navy apparently getting on with whatever job it is able to do with the few resources it has.

And then there was the soulless Birch report into Auckland City penny-pinching.

There is always a tendency at this time to take some time out to reflect on the year past and what might be different in the next one. But there's not much profit in it.

What is past is past and while it might be able to be modified, it certainly can't be undone.

What is to come remains hidden to us mere mortals and is known only to God, who sees the beginning and the end of all things.

Which is a very good reason to stay under his protection and care and to pray daily as he taught us, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil". And never forgetting, "Give us this day our daily bread ... "

It's a very good reason, too, to live one day at a time, even, sometimes, one minute at a time. For all we have is now - all the rest is either history or mystery.

I could be dead before I finish writing this column, or before it is published, or tomorrow or next week, so what's the point in worrying?

In any case, God knows I have enough trouble coping with today without fizzing about past foul-ups or scheming future ones. Sure, like everybody I make plans. But I don't try to live them today.

Having made them, I simply do what I can today to see that they come to fruition - or don't, as the case may be. If they do, that's great; if they don't, that's okay, too. There'll be something else to do instead.

If there was ever an example of that philosophy in action think back to the morning of September 11, to the thousands of people in Washington, New York and Boston who got up, had breakfast and went off to work or to travel, thinking about the day ahead and maybe making plans for the evening or the future.

Just as there might well be some who read this column this morning but will not live to see in the New Year.

I guess I'm extraordinarily fortunate to possess a thing called faith, which the writer to the Hebrews in the Bible defined so beautifully as "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen". Lovely, that.

And to posses hope. The writer to the Hebrews again: " ... lay hold of this hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast ... ".

That faith and hope I have in God is the only hope I have ever found worth having. It's what keeps me going when the going doesn't seem worth the effort.

He has never, ever let me down (though I've accused him of it a few times, I must admit). I tend to forget that there are only three possible answers to prayer - yes, no and wait.

And as for the New Year? Well, experience has taught me that the only things that will change between next Monday and Tuesday will be the figures on the calendar.

* Email Garth George