Every Day Deserves a Chance

FAITH:
Each day emerges from God's drawing room. Including this one. So I decided to give the day a chance, change my view, and imitate the resolve of the psalmist: "I will rejoice and be glad in it."
Oops, another word we'd like to edit: in. Perhaps we could swap it for after? We'll be glad after the day. Or through. We'll be glad to get through the day. Over would suffice. I'll rejoice when this day is over.
But rejoice in it? God invites us to. As Paul rejoiced in prison; David wrote psalms in the wilderness; Jonah prayed in the fish belly; Paul and Silas sang in jail; Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego remained resolute in the fiery furnace; John saw heaven in his exile; and Jesus prayed in his garden of pain… Could we rejoice smack-dab in the midst of this day? Imagine the difference if we could.
Suppose neck deep in a "terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day," you resolve to give it a chance. You choose not to drink or work or worry it away but give it a fair shake. You trust more. Stress less. Amplify gratitude. Mute grumbling. And what do you know? Before long the day is done and surprisingly decent. So decent, in fact, that you resolve to give the next day the same fighting chance. It arrives with its hang-ups and bang-ups, bird drops and shirt stains, but by and large, by golly, giving the day a chance works! You do the same the next day and the next. Days become a week. Weeks become months. Months become years of good days.
In such a fashion good lives are built. One good day at a time.
An hour is too short, a year too long. Days are the bite-size portions of life, the God-designed segments of life management.
Eighty-four thousand heartbeats.
One thousand four hundred and forty minutes.
A complete rotation of the earth.
A circle of the sundial.
Two dozen flips of the hourglass.
Both a sunrise and a sunset.
A brand-spanking-new, unsoiled, untouched, uncharted, and unused day!
A gift of twenty-four unlived, unexplored hours.
And if you can stack one good day on another and another, you will link together a good life.
But here's what you need to keep in mind.

You no longer have yesterday. It slipped away as you slept. It is gone. You'll more easily retrieve a puff of smoke. You can't change, alter, or improve it. Sorry, no mulligans allowed.
Hourglass sand won't flow upward. The second hand of the clock refuses to tick backward. The monthly calendar reads left to right, not right to left. You no longer have yesterday.
You do not yet have tomorrow. Unless you accelerate the orbit of the earth or convince the sun to rise twice before it sets once, you can't live tomorrow today. You can't spend tomorrow's money, celebrate tomorrow's achievements, or resolve tomorrow's riddles. You have only today. This is the day the Lord has made. Live in it. You must be present to win. Don't heavy today with yesterday's regrets or acidize it with tomorrow's troubles.
But don't we tend to do so? Don't we do the same? Guilt presses on one side. Dread drags the other. No wonder we weary so. We sabotage our day, wiring it for disaster, lugging along yesterday's troubles, downloading tomorrow's struggles. Remorse over the past, anxiety over the future. We aren't giving the day a chance.
How can we? What can we do?
Here's my proposal: consult Jesus. The Ancient of Days has something to say about our days. He doesn't use the term day very often in Scripture. But the few times he does use it provides a delightful formula for upgrading each of ours to blue-ribbon status.
Saturate your day in his grace.
"I tell you in solemn truth," replied Jesus, "that this very day you shall be with me in Paradise" (Luke 23:43 ). Entrust your day to his oversight.

"Give us day by day our daily bread" (Luke 11:3).

Accept his direction. "If any of you want to be my followers, you must forget about yourself. You must take up your cross each day and follow me" (Luke 9:23) by Max Lucado

FRIENDS:
Father, Teach us to live IN the moment, in the day that you have set down for us. Keep us from pining away for what was yesterday and longing for what might be tomorrow. Help us to be grateful for all moments alloted to us. In Jesus' name, Amen.

DAILY BIBLE CHALLENGE
February 23
Matthew 20:17-34; Acts 27:27-44; Psalms 45; Leviticus 21-23
February 24
Matthew 21:1-11; Acts 28:1-16; Psalms 46; Leviticus 24-25

Life In The Family of God~How am I doing?
1. Serve one another in love. Gal 5:13
2. If you keep on biting and devouring each other....you will be destroyed by each other. Gal 5:15
3. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other. Gal 5:26
4. Carry each other's burden...Gal 6:2
5. Be patient, bearing with one another in love. Eph 4:2
6. Be kind and compassionate to one another. Eph 4:32
7. Forgiving each other....Eph 4:32
8. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Eph 5:21
9. in humility consider others better than yourselves. Phil 2:3
10.Do not lie to each other...Col 3:9

FOOD:
Quinoa Garbanzo Salad with Mustard Vinaigrette
1 cup quinoa
2 cups water
2 cups cooked garbanzo beans
½ pound summer or zucchini squash,, sliced in half lengthwise, then sliced into ¼" thick half rounds I prefer the squash blanched, but you may like it raw.Feel free to substitute another seasonal vegetable. Blanched broccoli florets would be good in the fall.
15 pitted kalamata olives, sliced
¼ cup chopped parsley

Mustard Vinaigrette

3 TBSP apple cider vinegar
¼ teaspoon sea salt
1 TBSP whole-grain prepared mustard
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

Place the quinoa in a bowl. Rinse and drain about three times to remove any chaff. Add the water and quinoa to a small saucepan, bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, drain the garbanzo beans.
Blanch the squash, if desired, by cooking them in boiling water for one minute, then immediately drain and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking.
Mix the cooked quinoa, garbanzo beans, squash, olives and parsley in a bowl. Mix the vinaigrette ingredients in a bowl or screw top jar. Pour over the salad mixture and toss. Serve cold or at room temperature. Serves 4.

FUN:
THE GOOD WIFE: or how to keep the balance in a marriage.