Editor’s note: “The Spoken Word” is shared by Derrick Porter each Sunday during the weekly Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square broadcast. This will be given Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025.
A new year is here — a time for new beginnings, new goals and new dreams, a time when we look forward to the future and consider what we want to accomplish and what we hope might come true.
Since I was a child, I can recall regularly looking forward to the future — always thinking of and anticipating the next exciting event in my life. Some of these events included getting a driver’s license, graduating from school, getting married, starting a career and having children. Certainly these were events worth looking forward to.
As I’ve now grown older, I find myself wishing that time could slow down. I’m even old enough now to at times have remembered a past event and said to myself, “Those were the good old days!” But a somewhat recent thought has stuck with me: “These days are the good old days of tomorrow!”
At first, that concept felt a bit strange, but as I’ve continued to think about it, I really feel it’s true. The very days we are in — days that are busy, days that are challenging, even days that aren’t perfect, and most aren’t — these days are the good old days of tomorrow. These are the days with rich moments that we will look back on and yearn to relive. These are the days that in the future we will recall with fondness, days when we were growing and being stretched, days when we were learning and experiencing, days when we were making the memories of a lifetime.
Looking forward to the future is necessary and important. Reflecting on the past can offer perspective and growth. But living in the present allows us to enjoy in real time events and experiences that will become the good old days of tomorrow. Living in the present ensures that we do not defer until tomorrow the joy we might treasure up today.
Yes, we’re making the good old days of tomorrow, hour by hour and day by day. So as we look forward to another year and as we remember the many good years of the past, may we set a new resolution: to live fully in the present, today.
Tuning in …
The “Music & the Spoken Word” broadcast is available on KSL-TV, KSL NewsRadio 1160AM/102.7FM, KSL.com, BYUtv, BYUradio, Dish and DirecTV, SiriusXM (Ch. 143), tabernaclechoir.org, youtube.com/TheTabernacleChoir and Amazon Alexa (must enable skill). The program is aired live on Sundays at 9:30 a.m. Mountain Time on these outlets. Look up broadcast information by state and city at musicandthespokenword.com/viewers-listeners/airing-schedules.
