“This is the Day the Lord has made let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalm 118:24 How easy it is to get stuck in the past. How often we are filled with regret for mistakes made and opportunities lost. How easy it is to get into the “if only” trap. If only I had done this instead of that. If only I had decided differently. How much better my life would have been today if only I had made better choices. And some of us want to just turn back the clock and relive a certain time in our life. Those
were our best years, and we long to have them back.

“If only I could have my children young again, how I miss those days.” How easy it is to live only for the future. Children
want nothing more than to grow up and be adults. Teenagers want to be independent and on their own. Young adults think things will be better when they have a better job or a newer car. Parents think life will be better when their children aren’t
depriving them of sleep every night. Some of us long for the empty nest or the free time of retirement.

We can so easily fall into the trap of thinking that our future will somehow be better than today. But the past is gone, and the future is uncertain – today is all we really have. Remembering the past can certainly be a blessing and we need to hope for a better future, but we can’t relive the past and our future is largely beyond our control. What we do have is today.

Today is God’s great gift to each of us. Today He allowed you to wake up (never a given) and gave you the gift of another day of living. We may never be given another day of life – but we have today.

Today you can be thankful for the blessings of life: a good cup of coffee and food to eat, loved ones to share your life with, work to do, challenges to meet, and joys to be savored.

Today is the day our Lord has made, and we can rejoice and be glad in it. I write these words at the height of the fall foliage in New England. What an amazing display of beauty this is! It never grows old and always reminds me of the glory of God. It does indeed cause the heart to rejoice. That beauty and glory is always there if we look for it. On the cloudiest, gloomiest day, there is always the glory of God to behold if we have eyes to see it.

Today is the day God has given us to enjoy—to enjoy His presence in my life, to enjoy the love of family and friend so enjoy even the difficulties and problems that each day presents and the challenge of working through them with grace and humor.

This is the day God has given us. Too often we are stuck in the past or we are hurtling through our days rushing toward an uncertain future. Today is the day God wants us to live fully.

Listen to this poem written by an anonymous young Jewish girl. She was living in a Nazi concentration camp when she wrote these words. Imagine the immense gratitude and maturity she must have had to write these words while surrounded by the unspeakable horrors of that place. She wrote:

From tomorrow on
I shall be sad
From tomorrow on
Not today.
Today I will be glad,
And every day
No matter how bitter it may be
I shall say
From tomorrow on I shall be sad
Not today

How it would change our living if we, who are so safe and blessed, could choose to be glad today.

Grace & Peace,
Pastor Tom