How would you like to have a dollar for each time you have sung,
“This is the day that the Lord has made…”? You could probably
retire with a beach house, a convertible and a healthy parcel of
shares. Hopefully there will also have been some high level
rejoicing and gladness (if the actual words had carried real,
personal meaning, that is).

How do you receive each day?

Despite our positive singing about the day, there just may be a
danger of undervaluing it. Now the more highly organised of us
probably leap out of bed and into the shower in the morning with
our “To Do List” clutched firmly in our hand, ask a blessing upon
it and set about bringing in the Kingdom before lunch time. Others
who do not work with a list may wait quietly for a divine prompt
which may or may not come depending on the time we got to bed last
night.

Those who are happily disorganised (without a list or a divine
prompt spirituality) will do laps around the study feverishly
trying to recall the proposed text for next Sunday’s sermon or who
was on the sick list and should be visited. Whatever our manner of
approaching each day, it may never register that today is the
Lord’s most significant and latest strategy for His world.

Too often we approach the day without any deep sense of its
importance. What’s on the agenda today, we wonder. Phone calls,
reading, visits, sermon preparation, family time: the options grow
rapidly. There is little hope that half of what we want to do will
be attempted. Besides, it only takes one phone call to throw the
best plans into confusion. An accident, an illness, a death all
have the ability to rewrite the script and totally reorder the
pecking order. For some of us, we do not start well regardless of
the circumstances. We commence with a flat battery and really need
a jump start to launch into the day with all its possibilities.

The value of a day

At the end, the value of a day does not rest on whether we dealt
the prophets of Baal a king hit, or managed to walk on water, or
raised the dead. Nor does it matter if revival did not break out
with tongues of flame everywhere. It is all very well to be seized
by daring schemes, mission statements and visions of grandeur for
the Kingdom. But if we fail to recognise that the smallest detail
of the day has a crucial place in God’s scheme for His world, then
we have not grasped what we are about.

There is a need to dignify the seemingly insignificant: the casual,
friendly greeting, or the thirty second affirmation of a friend, or
a brief thank you note for a kind deed done all have their place in
the forward movement of the Kingdom. We are always in danger of
imagining that the up front exercises are the only ones which
really count. It is what happens when the right hand does not know
what the left hand is doing which signal that God is actively
present with us.

There is no point having those grand schemes for the future if we
cannot see the dignity of each day. On this basis, that moment of
serendipity, that chance encounter, that unexpected conversation
were not coincidences. Rather, they carried the imprimatur of a
God Who was engaged in everything we did.

Who of us have not phoned up someone on a whim only to discover
that we had connected at a critical moment in their life? The “How
did you know?” enquiry reminds us that the Holy Spirit still moves
even the most ordinary servants in remarkable ways. Of all people
those who are in Christian leadership have a right to expect that
today will be another quantum step towards the greater glory of
God. The equation may consist of nothing more than the normal
stew of joy, frustration, incomplete projects and interrupted
reflections. But the Kingdom has progressed through it all.

Too often we look back on a day and wonder what really happened.
It is hard to gauge how we have been used by God and most of the
time we do not have the slightest indication. It is a faith
exercise after all. This is a tough call for those who like to
measure outcomes.

An extended phone call with a worried parent may have dismembered
our plans but it could have been the life saver for that anxious
Mother. Our assessment may have been, “I really got trapped in
that conversation,” when it would be much more accurate to say,
“The Lord brought her back from the brink and I was the one He
chose to use. Now there’s a privilege for you.” It is a very
different economy from what the time management people would have
us think.

Learning to value today

So how do we restore the dignity to each day?

* First of all, it comes as no surprise that it is a gift and
(without meaning to be morbid) there is no guarantee of another
one tomorrow. Let’s live it as the last one available to us.

* Let’s approach it as a day to be enjoyed (even if there is a
tough meeting coming up tonight). If the exercise of ministry is
a constant struggle to survive each day, then it is time to
review what we are doing. An prolonged absence of satisfaction
and joy is a signal which demands acknowledgement and action.

* Back away from the temptation to do too much. Think objectively
about what is on that list (if you are a list person). How much
of it is central to your calling? How many of those endless
tasks really have to be done today? Are you wrung out simply
because you have failed to say “No”? You are not called to die
on every cross.

* Remember that it is today that your life will influence others,
not tomorrow or next week or next year. It is the impact of this
day which will progress the cause of Christ. It is what makes
this day so special, so mysterious, so full of grace, so
tantalising, so worthy of getting out of bed and entering it with
wonder and anticipation.

* Check your attitude. If we are constantly watching the clock
with a nine to five mentality, then we have surely misunderstood
the nature of our call. Those pastors who faithfully add up the
hours worked in a week may have missed the point too. There is
nothing clever about working ninety or more hours a week just to
demonstrate a life of sacrifice. It could be a life of rank
stupidity if it means deteriorating health, no clearly defined
goals, marital tension, family neglect and time wasting work
practices.

* If you are chronically disorganised, it is time to smarten up
your act. Pastors who wander around in circles will have a
wonderful witness in revolving doors but will be of little real
use anywhere else. There is no good excuse for a half throttle
devotion which never clicks into high gear and which, by
implication, utterly devalues each day.

* Live today by faith (in case you may have forgotten such a basic
maxim). Believe that, no matter how wonderful your five year
vision for your church, today is the most important next step in
the fulfilment of it. It is the Lord’s vehicle for living His
life in you. Be seized by the richness of all that is possible.
It is not just another allotment of twenty four hours. It is a
vital stage in the journey of discipleship, a divine piece of
the eternal jigsaw.

Will you really rejoice and be glad?

Today? It is the greatest leap forward taken yet for the Kingdom.
All over the world the saints of God will be engrossed in serving
Jesus in countless ways: speaking up, living out, praying
earnestly, healing the broken, giving themselves sacrificially for
the Lord they love. Doubtless somewhere today in the world, a
martyr will die a painful death only because they have a loyalty to
the risen Jesus which goes beyond clan, culture or country.

What happens in your study or on your turf is a strategic part of
God’s total plan for advancing the Gospel today. From the largest
urban congregation to the tiniest bush church in a forgotten
tropical jungle, there is a profound teamwork of a kind which goes
beyond our imagining. This day is really about a calm and joyful
acceptance of God’s abounding grace sufficient for us whether we
are in the gloomy valley, struggling upwards or enjoying a rare
moment of undiluted, uninterrupted pleasure with the Lord right on
top of the mountain (along with Moses and Elijah somewhere nearby
in the wings).

Be grateful that you were able to get out of bed this morning.
There may be some truly difficult matters on your agenda, the usual
complications which make up life. But this day was planned by the
Giver of Life from before the dawning of time itself. Nothing has
been left to chance; everything is in place for a great day with
God. Just go ahead and do your part. This is the day that the
Lord has made. Rejoice and be glad in it!

- John Simpson <!CC!IR”">

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