Imagine a picture of you as a toddler. Do you look at that toddler and relate to it in the sense that you identify with the person in the picture? I’ve found that some people do identify and others do not. I myself look at picture of myself as a child and think, “that poor kid”. I know it was me, but I’m so very different at this point that I do not identify with the kid in the picture. Not only is nearly everything I think and believe so evolved that it’s completely different, even all the cells in that person’s body are dead and have been replaced many times over. Interesting….

Now, to stretch your brain a little more, imagine a picture of yourself 15 years in the future. If you’re 15 now, you’re looking at a 30 year old version of you. You will be a different person by then with different beliefs, values, desires, priorities, music tastes, friends and goals. Your body will have replaced itself entirely. The very neurons you use to think will be replaced, so of course you will be a different person.

But that person will be entirely built upon the decisions you make in the present, as you come to the present over the next 15 years. That person’s status in life, the income they make, the wife he’s married to, the way his children are raised, how he enjoys or resents his work and career, whether he’s an addict or an overcomer, whether he has intimacy with God, whether his parents are proud of him, or whether he’s proud of himself – all of these things will be determined by the 15 year old version of you, the 16 year old version of you, and on and on. The decisions you make today will affect the 30 year old version of yourself in some ways more than they affect you now.

Imagine again that picture of the 30 year old you. Imagine that person is looking back through time at you today. What would they say? Would they say, “thank you” for the decisions and priorities you have now? Would they be mad at you? Would they feel sorry for you or challenge you to rise up? What might they say?