Posts
[An audio version of this blog post is also available - click here to listen]
“This is the day that the Lord has made.
Rejoice and be glad in it.”
Psalm 118:24
POSTSCRIPT
“This is the day that the Lord has made.
Rejoice and be glad in it.”
Psalm 118:24
The year was 1996. I can’t remember the month or the week; only that it was a Monday. One day in 1996.
This day, this Monday, was near the birth of my life of faith. A few weeks earlier, God had breathed new life into my spiritually dead body. I found myself a new believer, an infant in Christ at the age of 25, charting a course for the future.
This day, this Monday, I was reading one of several chapters in the book, Seven Promises of a Promise Keeper, and was working on a special assignment: a personal prayer.
I sat thinking, pondering, then writing. Simple words formed a clear prayer for my future family. It would be a gift to my family. A prayer that would reflect thankfulness to God, and a commitment to trust and follow Him. It was a sincere prayer, the prayer of a child in Christ.
It went something like this: “Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day. We thank you for the many blessings that you have given us. We ask that you would bless this food to nourish our bodies – to give us strength that we might delight in your will and walk in your ways.”
A simple sentence began that prayer, “We thank you for this day.” A simple sentence that contains an even simpler phrase, “this day.”
Since I first wrote that prayer, more than 4,500 “this days” have come and gone. The sun has risen and set on thousands of days. Some really good days. And some really hard days.
That phrase, “thank you for this day,” has passed from my lips countless times. So many times that the words often seem to launch without so much as a thought.
To be honest, I often fail to fully engage until a few sentences later. But today I caught myself. “This day.” “This day?”
Why do I thank God for “this day”? Why do you thank God for “this day”? Why should we thank God for “this day”?
Had the phrase lost its meaning?
Upon further reflection, the phrase, though brief, has potential for great depth. When prayed intentionally, thanking God for “this day” can provide us with a view to the past, the present and the future.
The view to the past reminds us that “this day” is the product of God’s work in our lives over months, years, even decades. He has been at work – in ways that we see and ways that we never see.
Without that work in my life, I don’t know where I would be. I do know it wouldn’t be good. Emptiness. Lack of purpose. Divorce. Wounded children. They were all in my future. But God had other plans. Plans that began with one “this day.” This “this day” – today – is the product of those plans of God and can truly be described as “the day that the Lord has made.” I can (and should) rejoice and be glad in it.
The view to the past also reminds us of the promises of the future. As a good friend once said, “God’s past faithfulness builds future confidence.” We can be confident in “this day” and the days to come because of the faithfulness of God.
As the classic hymn Amazing Grace rightly leads us to sing:
Through many dangers, toils, and snares
I have already come;
'tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
and grace will lead me home.
The road of faith has its share of bumps and potholes, not to mention head-on collisions. But as we witness God’s presence and grace bearing us up through rough courses and healing the whiplash that life sometimes deals out, we come to possess an unshakeable hope. An unshakeable hope that He will bring us through whatever might come our way. (Rom 5:3-5; 2Cor 1:10)
As a result, fear of the unknown is replaced by confidence in the One who is known. Because of God’s faithfulness in the past, we have a view to the future that is filled with confidence and hope.
Finally, the phrase “this day” is a critical one to remind us that “this day” is unique. Once it passes, it is gone forever – along with its opportunities. They are opportunities we don’t want to miss. Opportunities to give thanks. Opportunities to grow our faith. Opportunities to glorify God. To make things right. To love our neighbors as ourselves. To shine the light of Christ into someone else’s life.
“This day” is not only about today. It is about the past – the past faithfulness of God. It is about the present – the present work of God in and through our lives. It is about the future – a future filled with promise and hope.
May thanking God for “this day” remind us of the past, keep us watchful in the present and give us hope for the future.
This day, this Monday, was near the birth of my life of faith. A few weeks earlier, God had breathed new life into my spiritually dead body. I found myself a new believer, an infant in Christ at the age of 25, charting a course for the future.
This day, this Monday, I was reading one of several chapters in the book, Seven Promises of a Promise Keeper, and was working on a special assignment: a personal prayer.
I sat thinking, pondering, then writing. Simple words formed a clear prayer for my future family. It would be a gift to my family. A prayer that would reflect thankfulness to God, and a commitment to trust and follow Him. It was a sincere prayer, the prayer of a child in Christ.
It went something like this: “Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day. We thank you for the many blessings that you have given us. We ask that you would bless this food to nourish our bodies – to give us strength that we might delight in your will and walk in your ways.”
A simple sentence began that prayer, “We thank you for this day.” A simple sentence that contains an even simpler phrase, “this day.”
Since I first wrote that prayer, more than 4,500 “this days” have come and gone. The sun has risen and set on thousands of days. Some really good days. And some really hard days.
That phrase, “thank you for this day,” has passed from my lips countless times. So many times that the words often seem to launch without so much as a thought.
To be honest, I often fail to fully engage until a few sentences later. But today I caught myself. “This day.” “This day?”
Why do I thank God for “this day”? Why do you thank God for “this day”? Why should we thank God for “this day”?
Had the phrase lost its meaning?
Upon further reflection, the phrase, though brief, has potential for great depth. When prayed intentionally, thanking God for “this day” can provide us with a view to the past, the present and the future.
The view to the past reminds us that “this day” is the product of God’s work in our lives over months, years, even decades. He has been at work – in ways that we see and ways that we never see.
Without that work in my life, I don’t know where I would be. I do know it wouldn’t be good. Emptiness. Lack of purpose. Divorce. Wounded children. They were all in my future. But God had other plans. Plans that began with one “this day.” This “this day” – today – is the product of those plans of God and can truly be described as “the day that the Lord has made.” I can (and should) rejoice and be glad in it.
The view to the past also reminds us of the promises of the future. As a good friend once said, “God’s past faithfulness builds future confidence.” We can be confident in “this day” and the days to come because of the faithfulness of God.
As the classic hymn Amazing Grace rightly leads us to sing:
Through many dangers, toils, and snares
I have already come;
'tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
and grace will lead me home.
The road of faith has its share of bumps and potholes, not to mention head-on collisions. But as we witness God’s presence and grace bearing us up through rough courses and healing the whiplash that life sometimes deals out, we come to possess an unshakeable hope. An unshakeable hope that He will bring us through whatever might come our way. (Rom 5:3-5; 2Cor 1:10)
As a result, fear of the unknown is replaced by confidence in the One who is known. Because of God’s faithfulness in the past, we have a view to the future that is filled with confidence and hope.
Finally, the phrase “this day” is a critical one to remind us that “this day” is unique. Once it passes, it is gone forever – along with its opportunities. They are opportunities we don’t want to miss. Opportunities to give thanks. Opportunities to grow our faith. Opportunities to glorify God. To make things right. To love our neighbors as ourselves. To shine the light of Christ into someone else’s life.
“This day” is not only about today. It is about the past – the past faithfulness of God. It is about the present – the present work of God in and through our lives. It is about the future – a future filled with promise and hope.
May thanking God for “this day” remind us of the past, keep us watchful in the present and give us hope for the future.
“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD,
plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
Jeremiah 29:11
------------------------------------------------------------
POSTSCRIPT
Can you see the work of God in your life? Or is this a foreign concept to you? Has that new day – the birth of a life of true faith – dawned for you? Do you have hope for the future that depends not on yourself but on an unshakeable God? That is what your heavenly Father offers you through faith in his Son, Jesus Christ.
It is no light commitment, however. It is one in which we answer the call of Christ to “follow me,” wherever He leads. Jesus wants nothing less than all of us – our whole heart, our whole mind, and access to our every corner of our life.
He says that the road of faith is narrow and difficult, but it is the road that leads to life. The wide and easy road that so many of us choose to follow leads only to our own destruction.
He tells us that in following Him we will find true life (John 6:35) and contentment we can find nowhere else (John 14:6). He says we will possess fullness of joy (John 15:11). And He promises that, though we die physically, we shall live with Him forever in Paradise – the Extreme Home Improvement version of the Garden of Eden (John 11:25).
Sometimes we treat God as if He were someone we needed to defend ourselves against. We raise up a shield to keep Him away as if He were a cosmic fun stopper. But a cosmic fun stopper He is not.
He is a wonderful, devoted Father who went to great expense to show His love for you. He is the creator of every good thing. Though we stop up our ears, He shouts His love for us in myriad ways: spectacular sunsets, majestic mountains, calming ocean tides, culinary delights, the compassion of a friend, the embrace of a child. They are all good things. They are all gifts given by a good God.
Today, “this day,” is He calling you? Do you hear a whisper in your soul? A gentle whisper calling you to lay down the shield? To stop running? And to turn to the source of true life and true joy?
He’s waiting. He really is. And He’s more ready to embrace you than you are to turn.
Stop. Lay it down. Turn.
The sooner you do, the sooner you’ll discover a part of you that was meant to be crazy about Him too.
It is no light commitment, however. It is one in which we answer the call of Christ to “follow me,” wherever He leads. Jesus wants nothing less than all of us – our whole heart, our whole mind, and access to our every corner of our life.
He says that the road of faith is narrow and difficult, but it is the road that leads to life. The wide and easy road that so many of us choose to follow leads only to our own destruction.
He tells us that in following Him we will find true life (John 6:35) and contentment we can find nowhere else (John 14:6). He says we will possess fullness of joy (John 15:11). And He promises that, though we die physically, we shall live with Him forever in Paradise – the Extreme Home Improvement version of the Garden of Eden (John 11:25).
Sometimes we treat God as if He were someone we needed to defend ourselves against. We raise up a shield to keep Him away as if He were a cosmic fun stopper. But a cosmic fun stopper He is not.
He is a wonderful, devoted Father who went to great expense to show His love for you. He is the creator of every good thing. Though we stop up our ears, He shouts His love for us in myriad ways: spectacular sunsets, majestic mountains, calming ocean tides, culinary delights, the compassion of a friend, the embrace of a child. They are all good things. They are all gifts given by a good God.
Today, “this day,” is He calling you? Do you hear a whisper in your soul? A gentle whisper calling you to lay down the shield? To stop running? And to turn to the source of true life and true joy?
He’s waiting. He really is. And He’s more ready to embrace you than you are to turn.
Stop. Lay it down. Turn.
The sooner you do, the sooner you’ll discover a part of you that was meant to be crazy about Him too.
No comments:
Post a Comment