THE DAYS OF THE YEARS of our LIVES
Do you ever wake up in the morning or worst still, drag yourself out of bed in the morning not having slept very well, absolutely dreading the day? I must confess that sometimes I still do. However, every morning before we start the day, I pray with my wife. We do have a certain pattern to our prayers, which very often begin with quoting Lamentations 3:22 (Revised Standard Version RSV):
“The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Thy faithfulness"
We thank God for His mercies that are new every morning and claim His mercies for that day. I was in a meeting recently when R T Kendall was preaching and he said that as Christians we often do not recognise how much we still need God’s mercy - our whole lives are dependent on the mercy of God. That helped me not to feel so guilty, because I certainly have days when I desperately need His mercy (not because of any great sin) but because I just need his merciful help to face the day.
I like the idea that God’s mercies and compassions are NEW every morning. It also means that each day, each morning is a fresh start with special opportunities specific to that day.
I also like the words of Jacob when he was introduced to Pharaoh by his son Joseph (Genesis 47:7-10). Pharaoh asked Jacob how old he was and he answered: “The days of the years of my pilgrimage are one hundred and thirty years.” I like that translation: “the days of the years” which he repeats two more times. Some English versions such as the New International Version (NIV) lose that phrase but others like the New King James Version, Jubilee Version and Revised Standard Version keep it, and I don’t know how it is translated in other languages but I love that phrase:
“The days of the years”
Our lives are made up of DAYS which then turn into years. We all have a certain number of years allotted to us and for each one of us that is different, but what we all have in common is that however many years we live – each of those years is made up of 365 - 24 hour days.
Our lives are made up of days - and each day counts. Every single day is important. Any day could be our last day. What we do with each day is of eternal significance.
The decisions we make on one day can affect all the other days of our lives for good or for evil. Jesus talks of the evil of the day being sufficient for the day, so live a day at a time.
The majority of the days of our lives are very ordinary. There are a few days in our lives which I call “caviar days” that are especially exciting, eventful, interesting, significant and more or less happy but most days are daily bread days not caviar days.
Those ordinary days are just as important, if not more important than the exciting days. In one day for example we can fall into a temptation which could ruin our ministry or spoil our lives like it did for King David (2 Samuel 11).
What we do on those ordinary days is of vital importance. Not one of them should be wasted. We can have fun days and holidays and we should have a day of rest each week but even on those days, in fact each day, we have the opportunity to show the agape love of God to everyone we meet, have time for people, help someone, pray for people, witness for Jesus as we have opportunity, listen to the Holy Spirit, be available to serve the Lord in any way we can.
All those days will make up the years of our lives and with Jesus as our shepherd:
Surely goodness and MERCY shall follow me ALL the days of my life.
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