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Psalm 118:24 NLT

'This is the day the LORD has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.'

I love the early morning. I light a candle, pray for God to light my path into this day, and take some moments in prayer and reflection. Everything seems fresh, the day is bursting with opportunity. I have drawn a line on my bad behaviours and disappointments of the day past, while before me is a fresh canvas. I step into the day filled with hope.

Soon my optimism is challenged. I haven’t changed my personality, cracks and all, with a simple moment of prayer. What I have done is acknowledge whose day this is. It is easy to live as though life is an entitlement rather than a gift. I begin to assume I have a right to peace, health and happiness. When I don’t feel I am receiving my entitlements I simply demand them. This is God’s day, and I want to discover God within it and reveal his reality. My mindset has changed to acknowledge that what happens in each day must be mined to retrieve the riches God has deposited within it. Caring full-time removed me, or so I concluded, from the frontline of Christian ministry. Only towards the end of Katey’s life, and even more so since her death, have I realised that in that caring role I was actually on the very furthermost frontline.

For me, the challenge was always taking time to be with God. I’ve learned that high levels of activity, however worthy and valued, are always a distraction from encountering the presence of God. I do far less these days; but there again, I rejoice far more in each and every day, knowing within it there is treasure to be unlocked. I also have confidence that whatever my lot, God will be ahead of me and I need have no worries. I will rejoice and be glad in it.

QUESTION: Do you start each new day as if it were a grace-gift from God, or is it already running away from you as you race to complete all the tasks that you feel must be accomplished?

PRAYER: Sustaining Lord, whatever I may feel I have to do today, I pray I do your will.