One Day at a Time

I remember watching infomercials as a kid.  Back then it was never so much about kitchen gadgets as it was about music.  I used to think about how only old people would know the songs from the advertised albums.  Then there came the day when Time Life was selling 80's anthologies.  I knew then, I'm old.  The last couple of days I have been remembering one infomercial in particular.  It was a commercial selling music performed by Christy Lane, the headlining song named "One Day at a Time."  The chorus goes like this: 

One day at a time sweet Jesus

That's all I'm asking from you.

Just give me the strength 

To do everyday what I have to do. 

Yesterday's gone sweet Jesus

And tomorrow may never be mine.

Lord help me today, show me the way

One day at a time.

It's been playing in my head the last couple of days.  It is a summons, an invitation, a beacon, a hint.  So easy to hear, so hard to do.  Mostly because I am a planner.  I like to anticipate what is coming so I can be fully prepared.  I hate to be taken by surprise.  I guess I live by a secret belief that if I can wisely use the resources of today, tomorrow won't be so bad.  But in this moment, it is impossible to see that far ahead.  As much as I have an inner resistance to it, I have to live into this season one day at a time.

On topic, Jesus says this:
  “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?  Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?  Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?. . .  But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.  Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own" (Matthew 6:25-34).

Of course I want to say to Jesus, "I know worrying won't help, but planning ahead is worth a lot of hours."  In all of this, the heavens have been strangely quiet.

It's as if I am left with the words themselves.  No warm fuzzies.  No angel messengers.  No mysterious signs.  Just my Bible and the familiar faith that says the words found there are worth something.  Familiar faith has to work right now; my feelings are mute.  I can hear the childhood whine in the bottom of my gut, "But I don't feel like it!"  I feel like taking charge.  I feel like manipulating my circumstances to give me and my family an acceptable outcome.  I feel like leveraging all that I am for a future that is out of my grasp.  It's hard to let all that I care about rest in God's hands.  Mine are so much more accessible.  Harder still to rest my self there as well, when God seems so silent.

Seasons of honing our faith are like that I think.  If it were easy it wouldn't be called faith.  It would be called sight.  In my blindness I am learning to live into this day, one day at a time.

This is me trusting,

Sami