The Gift of One DaySample

The Gift of Today Isn’t that passage from Genesis 1 beautiful? Both in its power and in its simplicity? Darkness and light. Evening and morning. These were the basic elements of “the first day.” They are also the basic elements of every day. Of this day: today. A day was one of the first things God made. Before He made starfish and eagles and mountains and people, He created a day. Before even making the sun and the moon, He chose to frame the manner in which He wanted us to experience life. Right from the start, our time here on earth was to be measured in days with an ending and a beginning. Eve­ning and morning. This has continued and will continue for as long as the earth exists. Life is a stitching together of days. We encounter life—and we encounter God—one day at a time. Just sit with that idea for a moment. Ponder the reality of what this pattern suggests, what a gift it really is. The structure of what we know as a day is not merely a random measurement of time. God made this day this way for a reason. He makes all our days this way. For a reason. What if the sun could never be counted on to come up at all? What if you just never knew? It might rise in ten minutes; it might not rise for ten years. Can you imagine? How different life would be—how much scarier and more disorienting—if each morning and evening didn’t arrive as reliably as clockwork. Every day is designed by God with precision, with purpose, with a plan, with importance. Every day is a new treasure. But we don’t see days that way, do we? When we look at an average day, we see something else. Perhaps we see a canvas that’s nowhere near big enough to hold all the things we need to cram into it before tomor­row comes. Or we see a dull, monotonous repeat of the same old tasks and routines. Or we see a basketful of worries and questions and chal­lenges we don’t want to face. Or because of regrets and the consequences of our actions, we can’t really see much promise in today, having become so controlled by the past. We don’t typically see the treasure in each day. We don’t recognize it as a gift. We don’t start out often enough asking ourselves, What am I going to do with this day? But what if we did? How much different would our days become? What do you think would change in your life if you began to see each day as a gift from God?