Posts Tagged: one day at a time
“ONE DAY AT A TIME: DANCING IN THE RAIN”
“Anyone can fight the battles of just one day. It is only when you and I add the burden of those two awful eternities, yesterday and tomorrow that we break down. It is not the experience of today that drives us mad. It is the remorse or bitterness for something, which happened yesterday, or the dread of what tomorrow may bring. Let us therefore do our best to live but one day at a time. Am I living one day at a time?” (Twenty-Four Hours a Day.)
“Dust of Snow”
BY ROBERT FROST
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.
One day is at a time is more than a slogan. It is also more than a sitcom from the 1970’s and 1980’s. One day at a time is all any of its gets to live or has to live. The richest person in the world and the poorest person in the world each gets only one day at a time. Time is one of the most egalitarian aspects of human existence.
Of course, not everyone gets the same circumstances or relationships to live his or her day. So, perhaps the days are not so egalitarian after all.
On the other hand, I’ve noticed that people who have money, power, influence, pleasure, apparently good relationships, and good health aren’t always so happy in their days. Some are plumb miserable. And I knew a lady who sang hymns of praise to God the day she died at the end of her third round with ovarian cancer. It would appear that we are back to time being about as good as we perceive it to be (or, perhaps, make it to be).
But, whether time makes us miserable or happy . . . No! That’s not the most helpful way of looking at the matter. Time can’t make us either happy or miserable. We are the ones in charge of whether time makes us happy or miserable. We can’t create time itself, but we can often color it with either joy or sadness.
Not always. Sometimes terrible things happen, and we simply cannot be joyful. Sometimes we have to just stand there, like a cow in a cold rain.
But often, we can use our days to be happy, and to make others happy.
When the kids were little, we were about to go to the local outdoor swimming pool. However, it began to rain. There was distant thunder, and the pool was wisely shut down when there was lightning.
The kids—my youngest daughter in particular—were very disappointed. However, I did a very wise thing: I said, “Look, you’ve got your swim things on. Why not go out and dance around in the rain?”
And they did! I don’t remember if I myself went out and danced in the rain. Probably not. But I should have.
DOWN TO EARTH BELIEVER
- DTEB, “Getting Christ and Ourselves Back in Focus” November 11, 2024“Col. 3:1 ¶ If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Col. 3:2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. Col. 3:3 For you have died, and your life is hidden […]
- “Search Me!” October 27, 2024“Psa. 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! 24 And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Psalm 139:23-24, English Standard Version) I am participating in a Bible study, and this is a prayer […]
- “Christian Speech” October 26, 2024“Eph. 4:29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” Foulkes, in his excellent commentary on the Book of Ephesians, writes the following, which I quote at some length: “29. Now the […]
- “God is in the Details” October 11, 2024“The devil is in the details.” (A general saying, often quoted by lawyers, reporters, and negotiators.) “God is in the details.” (Me, almost certainly not original.) “Luke 12:7 Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.” (Jesus) God does not micromanage, but God […]
- “Grandma’s Pump” October 8, 2024When I was a little critter, I would stay at my grandma’s house for a night or two sometimes. I liked this for a lot for many reasons. One thing I liked about staying with her was that Grandma’s house was much more technologically advanced than ours was. For one thing, she had indoor water—sort […]
- “Wearing the #14 Wrong-Side-Out” October 5, 2024Pete Rose, #14, is dead. Many of the old guys with whom I play softball watched him play and appreciated him greatly. I do as well. He was one of the greatest players who ever played the game. Yes, he admitted (eventually) to betting on baseball. But many of us still regard him as one […]
- “Passing Along the Love (and a Link)” October 4, 2024Several years ago, a friend of mine put me onto a daily meditation by Richard Rohr and friends. I don’t read them all the time, but I probably should. They are good! I thought that today’s writing was especially good, and I also figured that this would be a good way to post something. I […]
- “Witnessing Versus Being Witnesses” September 19, 2024“Acts 1:1 In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, Acts 1:2 until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. Acts 1:3 He presented himself alive to them after […]
- “A Bathroom Prayer for Hurting Hands” September 11, 2024A week ago Sunday, my hands were hurting so badly at church that I went to the bathroom to run hot water over my hands. Arthritis perhaps, or carpal tunnel, or general orneriness—I don’t know why my hands hurt, but they do. They have for years. So, while I was running hot water over my […]
- “Waiting and Seeking” September 10, 2024“Lam. 3:19 ¶ Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! Lam. 3:20 My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. Lam. 3:21 But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: Lam. 3:22 ¶ The steadfast love of the LORD […]
“A HAPPY NEW DAY!”
DTEB, “A HAPPY NEW DAY!”
Have you ever thought about how arbitrary some of our transitional times are? And perhaps we are biting off more than anyone can chew when we start thinking and talking about a year.
Here is my journal entry for today.
Monday, December 31, 2018
“Finish each day and be done with it. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well.”
(Ralph Waldo Emerson)
The last day of the year. I wonder if we don’t make too much of these transitions. They are artificial, and perhaps not all that helpful or important.
“This is the day that the LORD has made” (Psalm 118:24) may be said of any day. Perhaps the morning and night are the real transitions.
Paul speaks of daily transformation in 2 Corinthians 4:16: “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.”
In 3:18—just a few verses before the “day by day” of 4:16—Paul notes that “. . . we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord,are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”
I found the comments of Colin G. Kruse so helpful that I copied and pasted them below, even though I generally hate long quotes.
“And we all … are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another. It is important to note that the changing into his likeness takes place not at one point of time, but as an extended process. The verb metamorphoumetha (‘we are being changed’) is in the present tense, indicating the continuous nature of the change, while the words from one degree of glory to another stress its progressive nature. The verb metamorphoō is found in three other places only in the New Testament. It is used to describe Jesus’ transfiguration in Matthew 17:2 and Mark 9:2, and Paul uses it in Romans 12:2 to denote moral transformation (‘Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind’).
Paul speaks often of the transformation of believers in other passages, though words other than metamorphoō are employed. In some cases he has in mind the future transformation of believers’ bodies to be like Christ’s glorious body (1 Cor. 15:51–52; Phil. 3:21). In other cases it is clearly a present moral transformation that is in view (Rom. 6:1–4; 2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15). The Old Testament prophets who spoke beforehand of the new covenant certainly anticipated a moral transformation of those who were to experience its blessings (Jer. 31:33; Ezek. 36:25–27), and Paul saw this expectation fulfilled in the lives of his converts (1 Cor. 6:9–11; 2 Cor. 3:3). These last references, together with Romans 12:2 cited above, provide the clue to Paul’s meaning in the present context. The continuous and progressive transformation by which believers are changed from one degree of glory to another is the moral transformation which is taking place in their lives so that they approximate more and more to the likeness of God expressed so perfectly in the life of Jesus Christ.”[1]
So, rather than simply wishing you a happy New Year (which I do!), let me give you an even deeper wish: May you have a happy new day!
[1] Colin G. Kruse, 2 Corinthians: An Introduction and Commentary, TNTC 8; IVP/Accordance electronic ed. (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1987), 101-102.