One day at a time …

At Scott Free Clinic (SFC), I work with every type of person imaginable from all over the world. But a particular person SFC often serves is someone who is struggling to hang on just one more day.

For this person, life seems so overwhelming, so full of trouble, so difficult, that it’s hard to see getting through just one more day. But they learn how to live well by hanging on one more day, and then, eventually, how to enjoy that day.

Imagine if God allowed you to receive on every January 1 all the troubles and trials you would have that year on that one day. It would be overwhelming! By His grace, all of life’s troubles aren’t delivered to us in bulk. We can face them one day at a time.

That also is an additional motivation to seek God each day.

Unfortunately, we are fickle (and often not-so-faithful) people who are more prone to seek out God in times of need or want, rather than purposely enjoy Him daily. But life is daunting enough that we really need Him each day.

The famous author, Source Unknown, captured something of this idea in the following story:

“Once there was a rich man who had a son to whom he promised an annual allowance. Every year on the same day, he would give his son the entire amount. After a while, it happened that the only time the father saw his son was on the day of allowance. So the father changed his plan and only gave the son enough for the day. Then the next day the son would return. From then on, the father saw his son every day. This is the way God dealt with Israel. It is the way God deals with us.”

It’s also the way Jesus taught us to live:

“That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life — whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing? Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? And why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith? So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today,” Matthew 6:25-34.

We’re not so good at obeying what Jesus taught, are we? Wanting to find some kind of “meaning” for our being, we instead hurl ourselves headlong into the hurriedness of life, which only makes getting through another day more difficult:

We all crave a meaningful life. This is good and holy. But in the quest for meaning, we get mixed up, turned around, and accidentally end up constantly in a hurry. We rush to grow successful businesses, a more potent faith, robust bank accounts, and, if we are parents, spiritually-grounded children. We climb proverbial mountains and dream bigger dreams. Any obstacles can be obliterated swiftly by the right amount of self-help dynamite.
That sort of existence may, indeed, lead us somewhere spectacular. But the costs are high: we end up feeling rushed, often anxious and out of sorts, fearful that we are falling behind. Here, the hurried heart is born and then nurtured in a million ways by a culture that idolizes bigger, harder, faster.

This was the life I accidentally chose — a life of running hard, scaling fast, and chasing results. Do you know the bruising, try-hard way of the hurried heart? A hurried heart manifests itself in both big and little ways — from the way you feel about your life’s worth to the way you respond to being stuck in a long line at Starbucks. It’s the way you react when you hop on Instagram, see everybody winning, and conclude that your contributions seem meaningless. – Source – “Growing Slow: Lessons on Un-Hurrying Your Heart from an Accidental Farm Girl”).

You don’t have to live in a hurry, and you don’t have to overcome all of 2023’s challenges today, you just have to live today. Life is best handled, and more fully lived and enjoyed, when we heed Jesus’ teaching of learning to live one day at a time.

Hang in there one more day.

Scotty