Day 31.....One Day At A Time

Day 31         One Day at a Time

 

As I near the completion of this ‘Calendar’…this work of study that has helped me see how important is it to put the past in the past, I can hear the words of my mother-in-law.  Finding that she had lost yet another friend to cancer, we tracked to the funeral home to the “viewing.”  We were just sitting in the funeral home when a friend came up and asked her how she was doing.  She replied very quickly, “I take it one day at a time my friend.”

We can plan for the future….but the reality is that God is in control.  We may make some pretty great plans…and find ourselves still looking at a pretty tough ‘present.’  Yesterday is gone, tomorrow has not arrived…we need to enjoy the blessings of today!  God wants us to commit to making the best of the day he made for us…today! What David wrote in Psalms 118:24, “This is the day that the Lord has made…..I will rejoice and be glad in it”….these are the words we must cling to if we are to find joy. It is in the present that God gives us small tasks to do…small lessons that teach us one day at a time that our lives can still be useful…that we can move past the loss.

God helped Matthew pen some pretty powerful words in his great book, they speak very clearly just how important it is to live in the present.  He tells us in Matthew 6:31-34

³¹Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?

³²(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

³³But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

³⁴Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

 

The Israelites found themselves once in a desert… no food…so they called out for God to save them.   God answered their prayer by giving them manna….manna that was given one day at a time…too little and the Isrealites would starve…too much and the extra would rot.

 

 

 

 Moses gave them the exact words of God in Exodus 16:15-19:

When the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, “ What is it?” for they did not know what it was.  Moses said to them, “It is the bread the Lord has given you to eat.  This is what the Lord has commanded:  ‘Each one is to gather as much as he needs.  Take an omer for each person you have in your tent.’”  The Israelites did as they were told; some gathered much, some little.  And when they measured it by the omer, he who had gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little.  Each one gathered as much as he needed.  Then Moses said to them, “ No one is to keep any of it until morning.”

 

We must collect our own manna…one day at a time…and trust that God has a plan.  He calls us to trust him…like the Israelites…we who have lost loved ones find ourselves in a vast desert. And  like the Israelites…God is feeding us one day at a time.  We must pray…and study his word…and give of ourselves…and testify to the wonderful blessing s he has given us in spite of the pain.  What new blessings must be in store for us if we collect the right amount of manna each day…the amount that will lead us to new joy.  For the Lord knows his plans for us…to prose us…and not harm us….plans for a great future.