This and That

 This is the day the LORD has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118:24.....He has also set eternity in their heart  Ecclesiastes 3:11

It was said of Martin Luther that he had two days on his calendar; "This day and That day." What he meant was that he was not consumed with living in the midst of any days but these. He would live the current day to the fullest of his ability. Whether it be "good day" or a "bad day" it would be lived for the Lord, listening for Him, looking for Him, seeking to glorify Him in it. He would not be distracted by what had gone on yesterday or fearful about the next day. He would receive the day the Lord had granted him, and he would rejoice in it. He would rejoice that on this day His Lord and God was with Him, and since He was with him, he would have victory no matter what the day held.

In addition to "this day," he would also live for "that day." By this he meant that great day when he would fully behold His Lord. That day when all he had lived through, walked through, and yes, suffered through, would be past. No more tears. No more sorrows. The day that he would enter into the fullness of eternity. An eternity he had been created for and had been seeing from afar, but now in all its beauty. For Luther, these were the only days that really mattered. He would live his life around them. Do we? Do we even know how? Do we even desire to?

We say, even as followers of Christ, that we only take one day at a time, but how true is that? How much of our lives today are going to be affected by what happened yesterday, even if that "yesterday" was many years ago? How many of us spend so much time fretting over tomorrow, so consumed by it that we miss everything that was there for us today? Even if we are not focused on either yesterday or tomorrow, we can be so upset, so overwhelmed with the events of today, that we completely miss what God may have for us in it. Even in the worst of days, He is moving, speaking, bringing the opportunity to go deeper in Him, or share something of Him to another going through a similar place. We are missing Him in our today. Think of all those during the earthly ministry of Jesus who came into contact with Him, even heard Him speak or felt His touch, yet they never really noticed. Their minds were absorbed with their own lives. They missed Him in their today. How are we like them?

Yet, I think even worse than all this is how little thought or preparation we have or give to "that day," a day that will surely come to us all. We live with a yearning for eternity. He is the One who put that yearning within us. C.S. Lewis said that if there exists a longing within us that nothing in this world can fulfill, perhaps we should recognize that we were made for another world. We may reject that truth, deny it, avoid it, or run from it, but it remains the truth. Our lives here are, as the Bible says, "but a breath." Eternity is forever, but how little thought or concern we have for how we will spend it. That day, when all that we have lived out in these days will be weighed. Will we have lived for Him, for Christ, or will all of our lives be invested in a world that is passing away? Will we be ready for "that day?"

This day and that day. Two days that define all of what our lives will be and have been. How do we face them? How will we face them?

Blessings,
Pastor O