Maybe we really do spin our wheels more than we think.  Snowshoeing through a forest the other day, I chanced upon a rather large and sturdy looking nest about twenty feet off the ground, clinging to a set of branches.  Marvelous, I thought, just marvelous.  This nest was not made with concrete or metal, not held together with synthetic glue.  It was assembled using purely natural materials, the detritus of the forest, the products of the world out of which it came.  It was not built according to a blueprint, it was not designed in the proverbial smoke-filled room.  Many springs ago, a bird, perhaps a couple of birds built this nest.  They likely didn't think much about it; they sensed a need and immediately set about to meet it.  And they didn't build this nest to collapse or break down.  They built it for the ages.
     Do we build for the ages?  Year after year, teams of scientists research to identify the longest lasting material, the strongest substance, the sturdiest protection for our goods and possessions.  They never stop, either.  People are constantly looking for the next best thing, the next best thing that will satisfy their desires for shelter and protection.  What is good this year may not be good the next.
     Not so for the birds.  Year after year, they are satisfied with what they've always done, with what they've always used.  They need nothing more.  The present is enough.  Perhaps this is why Jesus remarked about the birds that, "Even Solomon [one of the great kings of Israel] in all his glory was not arrayed as one of these [meaning birds]."
     Sometimes what is already here or what has always been rather than what will come next is the best thing.  Past, present, and future, it's all here. Although God dearly wants us to dream and live out, in space and time, the life he has given us, he also wants us to understand that, every night and every day, what is most important is that he has always been.  For it is from God's eternality that everything else comes, today, tomorrow, and all days to come.  In it we start, and in it we end.
     As the Greek philosopher Parmenides remarked, "What is, is.  What is not, is not."  Indeed.  What is there is never what's not.