Extraordinary Promises for Today
“This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalm 118:24
Are you a countdown person? When I was younger, I was a huge countdown person. I remember making paper chains to count the days until Christmas, my birthday, the beginning of summer.
In fact, sometimes I got so carried away in my countdowns and looking forward to the next big thing that I didn’t realize all of the little things that were going on around me.
It’s one of the easiest things in the world to overlook days and moments, because they seem so ordinary and small. It’s so easy to just want to fast forward through the little, boring things to get to the big, fun things.
Whenever I want to fast forward, I try to remember what the Lord is telling me in Psalm 118:24. THIS is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it. God is telling us that each day is important. Each day is cause for celebration. But why? How can we celebrate every single day? And why would we anyways?
Well, because God made this day! He created this day and is at work in it even now. We can rejoice each day because God loved us so much that He put skin on and came down to seek and save us. There’s nothing more amazing than that, and it’s true this day and every single day! That’s amazing.
But sometimes I don’t feel like rejoicing. It seems crazy to say that, because the Lord who made the heavens and the earth loves me! I especially don’t feel like rejoicing during days that are boring or ordinary or hard. Sometimes life is hard and stressful and it’s hard to believe that rejoicing can actually take place right here and right now.
Consider this. Rejoicing is not the same as being super excited for everything that’s happening. Rejoicing is gratitude for God’s love. Our emotions change all the time, and so do our circumstances. The one thing that will never change is the depth of God’s love for us. If we wait until our circumstances or our mood changes, we can’t appreciate that love the way God intended us to.
Lamentations 3:22-23 says, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” That’s the best news ever!
That means that even if I wake up thinking about a conversation I had with a friend the day before where I wasn’t as nice as I should have been, God forgives me each morning, and I can count on that. If I am struggling through a hard decision or a difficult time, I can wake up each day, point to Lamentations 3:22-23, and know that God is faithful and He will never leave me.
Those are some extraordinary promises! They’re promises that help us focus on the now, on the ways that God is loving us now, instead of hoping that things will be different in the future.