I Swear, I’ll Change Tomorrow

Break off your sins by practicing righteousness, and your iniquities by showing mercy to the oppressed . . . Daniel 4:27

Every time I got a bottle of pills, it was the last time. I’ll stop tomorrow. I swear I will. Just one more indulgence, and then I’ll get my life together. When tomorrow became today, I got another bottle and I repeated my empty promise.

I’ve done this with any painful, difficult change. I promise I’ll start eating healthy tomorrow, but right now, I’ll eat what I want. I know what I’m doing is destructive, so I appease my conscience by assuring myself that tomorrow will be different. Through painful experience though, I’ve learned that I’ll change tomorrow, is the battle cry of those doomed to fail.

King Nebuchadnezzar learned this in todays’ passage. In the story, the King of Babylon found God through the fiery furnace experience when God saved Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from certain death. The king came to believe in God, but he did not repent. Through a disturbing dream, Daniel warned him that he must change his ways . . . or suffer profoundly.

The king did not change, and was struck by God, being made to live as a wild animal, dwelling with the beasts of the field (Daniel 4:32). The king knew God and claimed to believe in him (Daniel 4:3), but he refused to live differently, and suffered the consequences.

This is where many of us find ourselves. We believe we should follow God, but still, we live for ourselves. Tomorrow I’ll change, but today, I’ll do what I want. We plan to live rightly . . . eventually. When tomorrow comes but repentance does not, like Nebuchadnezzar, we pursue our own doom. God eventually allows us to find painful consequences.

One day of indulgence may not lead to disaster, but a lifetime of days lived for myself eventually leads to misery and destruction. If I want to know God and if I want to embrace life instead of the misery of me, then I must abandon my empty tomorrow-promises. I must realize that repentance and change is for now. Waiting for tomorrow is a lie. Today, I must do whatever it takes to turn from my path, to follow God’s.