Scripture
This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." Psalm 118:24
Observation
Don't you sometimes wish that you can turn back the clock? Maybe you are suffering the consequences of past mistakes, things you wish you had not done and if only you could go back in time and set it right. But we cannot turn the clock back. We cannot bring back better days. And it is actually not necessary that we should.
If by means of some fantastic "time machine" we were permitted to go backward and visit some favourite period of the past, we would probably find the experience extremely disappointing. Why? Because you are longer the same person you were then. You have changed. Yesterday is no longer the same after you have experienced today. That is why the scripture tells us to rejoice in today and not yesterday!
Application
To each one it is given to occupy his own spot in history. He must, like David, do the will of God by serving his own generation. It is in his own day that he must meet God in satisfying encounter. It is in his today, not in some pensive yesterday, that he must explore the riches of divine grace, do his allotted work and win his crown.
Psychologists attribute certain abnormal mental conditions to an unconscious desire to escape the responsibilities of adult life by returning to the quiet and security of the prenatal state. Our habit of trying to recapture the past glow of some better time by going backward creates a suspicion that we have lost the will to fight for the future by living fully today.
Today is an opportunity to know God and to serve Him. We no longer have yesterday and may have left no tomorrows. But today is uniquely God-given. Live today to the full for this is the day the Lord has made and I will rejoice and be glad in it.
Prayer
Prayer
My tendency, Lord, is to look back or forward. In doing so, I often miss the strategic value of today. Thank You for this day. Empower me to live it fully for Your glory!
