A Day per Day
“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” ~Matthew 6:34
“Do not be anxious about anything” (Phil. 4:6). That’s hard! It’s hard not to be anxious about anything! It usually only takes one thing – one thing – to disquiet our souls. But Paul says don’t be anxious about anything. How can we not be anxious about anything?
As well as taking our burdens to the Lord in prayer (Phil. 4:6), a helpful – nay essential – thing to do, is to take a day at a time! That sounds a wee bit cliché, doesn’t it? “A day at a time.” But it’s what Jesus teaches: “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble” (Matt. 6:34). A day per day. Whether anxiety, grief, illness, or other hardship, our natural tendency may be to wonder how we’re going to get through the week, or month, or even years. But actually, all we need to do is to look to the Lord for grace to get through just today.
A Christian blogger, Tim Challies, lost his son. When Nick was only 20 years old, he suddenly dropped down dead. And Tim was overwhelmed by the long road that lay ahead. In his article, I Miss My Son Today, he said, “It looks long as I gaze into the future and see a road laid out before me that may well lead through months, years, decades. It looks longer still as I consider the heavy burden of grief God has called me to bear ... I just don’t know how I will bear up under this sorrow if I have to carry it all the way to the end.”
But he remembered when he was a boy how his landscaper father asked him to move a ton of bricks from one end of a driveway to another. How could he move a whole ton of bricks? One brick at a time! He didn’t need to carry all the bricks at once – just one at a time. He writes:
And just so, while God has called me to bear my grief for a lifetime, and to do so faithfully, he has not called me to bear the entire weight of it all at once. As that pile was made up of many bricks, a lifetime is made up of many days. The burden of a whole lifetime’s grief would be far too heavy to bear and the challenge of a whole lifetime’s faithfulness far too daunting to consider. But the God who knows my frailty has broken that assignment into little parts, little days, and has promised grace sufficient for each one of them. My challenge for today is not to bear the grief of a lifetime or to be faithful to the end, but only to carry today’s grief and only to be faithful on this one little day that he has spread out before me.
And I am confident that, by his grace, I can carry out today’s assignment. I am confident that I can bear the burden of this day’s sorrow until night falls and my eyes close in rest. I am confident that I can be faithful in today’s calling for as long as the day lasts. I don’t need to think about tomorrow or next week or next year. I don’t need the strength to carry the burdens of any other day and don’t need the resolve to remain faithful through any other circumstance. My God-given task began this morning and extends only until tonight. Then, when I awaken with the dawning of a new day, I will awaken to new blessings, new strength, and new grace that will allow me to be strong and faithful through that day as well.
You may be reading this and you have a heavy burden. Sickness, death, mourning, loneliness, pain, sorrow. Indeed, as a church family, we are all in this boat together for a season. How can we carry on? A day per day, knowing, as we sang at Justin’s graveside, “Great is Thy faithfulness! Morning by morning new mercies I see.”
Rev. Rob Dykes, Pastor of Preaching & Congregational Care