Today is filled with challenges. Just waking up and making a beginning on the day can be hard. It has gotten to be difficult to talk myself into turning on the news as my wife and I gather at the breakfast table. The news is always bad. Who wants to hear it. Planes crash, cars collide, stocks fall, inflation rises, the world battles, leaders argue, and the weatherman always gets it wrong. Who wants to hear it? Working to find that perfect balance of job and home, work and life, is a constant problem throughout the day. Sometimes figuring out what you want to eat is a task big enough to rob us of the very pleasure of eating. Today is never easy except when it fades into yesterday. I wish I could count the number of times when i woke up thinking the day was going to be okay only to hear tornado sirens or get the devastating phone calls announcing disease or death or finding out the car won't start or co-workers are all out for the day for one reason or another. All my best laid plans come to naught when I think that today is going to be just fine. Only when today passes into yesterday can I make that kind of judgment upon the day.
Tomorrow is even worse. I cannot begin to tell you what hopes I have had for the days to come only to see them disappoint me over and over again. Sometimes the uncertainty of tomorrow steals away my rest and I am left to toss and turn sleepless upon my bed and all for a day that is not yet. The dread of what might be is so often worse than reality but it is just as often not as bad as things will get. The sun will not always come out tomorrow but you can bet your bottom dollar tomorrow will not fail to disappoint your hopes and realize you worst fears. I remember my Uncle Norris' funeral when the pastor described my uncle bending down to the dirt of his farm and expressing wonder over the mystery of life. He obviously did not know my uncle or any farmer or all the rest of us who looks to the future with a mix of dread and surety that God will not get it right (too much rain or too little and if it is a good crop then it will go for a bad price). My uncle was not a bad guy. We all look at the calendar that way. It is out of our control and that is its worst fault.
It is as if God has designed us to depend upon Him. It is as if He proves Himself to us every day by turning the fight of today and the anxiety of tomorrow into the peace of yesterday which not only over but better than it was, at least in retrospect. Thanks be to God we have only the challenges of the day to torment us and the what ifs of tomorrow to haunt us. If we were in charge, it would be even worse. But God can deal kindly with memory and teach us that its worst was not so bad and its best was not so good that it cannot be equaled. There is some peace in that if we allow it.
1 comment:
Living with inconveniences, boredom, disappointments, lost opportunities, and chronic depression are the normal experiences for most of us. The news of the day is often filled with evil happenings, as well as some positive stories, and it is to be expected. It is a fallen world. The Lord told us this in His word, the prophets repeated it, the saints experienced it, and so it goes on. But our timeline is linear, not circular, with a beginning, middle, and an ending. But in the case of the saved child of God, the ending is actually a new beginning. With respect to the things we so easily complain about, minor decisions about what to have for dinner, a rained out ballgame, a delay in traffic, a missed appointment…..well, it is all quite silly when we think about it. Many people in the world are suffering with real problems and would gladly exchange them for the issues that concern us. My parents experienced the Great Depression, than World War Two, followed by unemployment, financial problems, marital issues, and life was only better in the latter years, before illness and old age closed out their lives. I watched them earnestly as a child, and learned to separate inconveniences from real problems. In my spiritual life, God has taught me to appreciate His grace and be resigned to trials that we must endure with patience. When you think this way, I found that God always lifts one up, giving one peace of mind and perseverance. God is the great teacher. He teaches us how to live by a practical and spiritual faith, and by listening to the quiet admonishing of the Holy Spirit, no problem is too great to bear, and we learn to cast aside the minor inconveniences behind us. Soli Deo Gloria
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