THIS DAY

It always amazes me how so often a day starts out with certain expectations and ends up being totally different by the afternoon. Basically I’m a really sucker for signs of promise that it is going to be a great day. Oh it never is anything specific, just a feeling more than anything, but in the end reality may or may not conform to my expectations.

The above paragraph is the confessions of a dreamer. I like to imagine and mold the day according to my desires. But that doesn’t mean it has any real bearing upon what happens.

And while I might sit and feel it is unfair that life doesn’t cooperate in that regard, I do understand how the Lord is still in charge. I still enjoy planning naturally. I love to have that illusion of being in control and feeling organized.

If only life would actually turn out that way more often. However the Lord certainly doesn’t concern himself with my personal choice in that regard.

In reality God grants us life by each day instead of a whole lifetime of minutes. One of the promises of the Old Testament was “as thy day, so shall thy strength be.” Likewise we see another facet of that same “daily” focus upon portion with the manna he gave the people of Israel while in the wilderness.

It came each day, with the exception of the day before the Sabbath when one was required to collect enough for two days. And even though human nature would be to want to collect more than one’s day supply every day, God warned them to not do so because the surplus would spoil.

The idea of course was to convey how the Lord could provide their needs, but he had no intentions to do so in a way that would keep them from having a reason to trust him. Thus everything was focused on a daily portion and left tomorrow in the realm of the unknown.

For us planner types that kind of daily portion can be aggravating. It becomes so easy to think in terms of visions and the future and in the process forget the importance of now, which is really all we have.

There are times of course when God does nudge me with reminders of how I should concentrate on today’s struggles and not worry about tomorrow. That to me is the most important issue. It isn’t that planning is bad. It is allowing oneself to get totally consumed with worry and fear over what hasn’t happen yet that we are to try and avoid.

We are commanded to not worry. Which is so much easier to talk about than actually do. But along the way hopefully there are the little victories where we manage to keep our focus the way God intends. And praise him that he is a lot more longsuffering and patient in terms of knowing how it can in some cases take a lifetime for us to truly embrace each day as he would desire us to do.