New Beginnings—Day 2: Day by Day

“Instead you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.’” (James 4:15)

How quickly a year seems to go by! Christmas has come and gone, and we’re now looking forward to what a new year will bring. Instead of anticipating blessings from above, however, many are looking with a sense of dread and terror to what is ahead, in view of all the turmoil in the world today. The headlines seem to get worse by the day, and the 24-news cycle is rife with reports that make people’s hearts melt with fear. Add to that the deepening political divide, along with the coarsening of our discourse on social media, and you have all the ingredients for a time of uncertainty in our future rather than jubilation in the opportunity for new beginnings.

For the Christian, it shouldn’t be this way. We can’t worry about what the next week or month or year will bring. Instead, we have to go day by day. It was that way when the Israelites were told by God to gather their manna from heaven every single day (except on the day before the Sabbath, when they were to gather enough for that day and the next). And didn’t the Lord teach us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread?" Why is that? Because God is our supply, and we need to have a connection to that supply daily.

Moreover, there are times when we’re going through trials that are more than we can bear as individuals, or in our respective families, or as a church family, or as a nation. And in those times, our supply from above has to be more than just day by day; it has to be almost moment by moment that we are drawing our strength from the Lord.

There’s nothing wrong with having some objectives and projections in life—regarding a healthy lifestyle, the work of the Lord, and even some goal we might be pursuing for the purpose of honoring the Lord in our finances. But it should always be done with the caveat: “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”

The bottom line is that we should entrust ourselves to the God who knows the end from the beginning, who loves us, and who holds the whole world in his hands. How wonderful to be able to give God all the days of our lives—not just at the beginning of another year, but every single day of every year!