SUFFICIENT FOR THE DAY

"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble" (Matt 6:34).

Sufficient for the day is also its own grace, mercy, strength, salvation... etc., to meet that trouble. Learning to live in the day in Him, therefore, is key and will bring us peace and rest. "This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it" (Ps 118:24). Once we stop striving to be out ahead of everything, we can turn our eyes from looking afar off to gaze upon Him as we ought, as we claim we desire to do. Once we recognize the Lord restricting us to Himself, we can stop struggling and just relax in His arms. All our energy can be focused on the moment and what He is doing right now. What a blessing it is, but normally we don't come to this sort of rest on our own. It can take some serious circumstantial intervention to bring our driven lives to a halt.

American culture especially breeds an anxious lifestyle. We will run as far and fast as the latest technology allows. Our little legs and minds can barely keep up, not to mention aspects of our health. Without realizing it, we almost always live in a collage-like view of the future – the next meeting, the weekend, trips, schooling, jobs, marriage, houses, children, retirement… the list goes on.

Nothing was more arresting than in 2000 when our family began living in Kenya and we tried to carry on business overseas as we would in the USA. David would leave for town on the back of a bicycle with a list of things to accomplish each day. Hours later he would drag in exhausted and frustrated, declaring another day a waste with barely a thing done. We finally caught on and lowered our bar of expectation in this new environment where just sending and receiving our email once a day was nothing short of a miracle. It meant four components had to all be up and running simultaneously in rural Africa – our computer, the server, our phone line (remember dial-up?), and the ever unpredictable electricity. At times it was just too much to ask, especially when it had rained!

So, our African motto was do one thing in a day and if more happens, it's a perk! Simply put, we were reduced to: What would You have us do today, Lord? (Shouldn't this always be our daily prayer?) Suddenly, life was much more enjoyable, every breath sweeter, yet in our short-sighted humanness, we had to relearn this principle every time we returned to the field and sometimes in between...

When David's mother became ill with cancer, we were quickly reduced to living one day at a time. Only God knew what each day would hold and it looked nothing like we imagined. All our plans came to a grinding halt with no idea when they might resume. How eye-opening to see the embarrassing amount of impatience and aggravation brewing beneath the surface of our hearts. The Lord kept us strictly on a "need to know" basis, yet in His faithfulness we always knew what bridge to cross when. In the end, Helen went home to glory. It was a relatively short, but excruciating nine-week ordeal of breaking and brokenness forcing us to be content only in Him and His abundant provision for the moments we lived each day. However, the lessons learned have carried us through years to come.

"Blessed be the Lord, who daily loads us with benefits, the God of our salvation! Selah. Our God is the God of salvation; and to GOD the Lord belong escapes from death" (Ps 68:19-20).

Live in the day for more than sufficient is He, a very present help in trouble... Psalm 46.

  - Elese