Is Today Worth Celebrating?
Written By: Chris Mace
We enjoy expressing our joy, love, congratulations, gratitude, and good fortune with special events. We celebrate beginnings and endings, new opportunities and positions, finished works and retirements, births and deaths, birthdays, milestones, graduations, reunions, new love, marriages, anniversaries, friendships, healings and recoveries. We hold special religious and federal holidays and look forward to harvest festivals, fairs, picnics and sharing fun at amusement parks.
Frequently too busy, overwhelmed and frenetic, we fail to appreciate that every day is an opportunity to celebrate. The Psalmist said that “This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it!” Truly that is not always easily done. Troubles, tragedy, or just the challenges of our daily lives may engulf and exhaust us. We long for that “One Moment in Time” about which Whitney Houston sang, a time when we sense we have our destiny under control. If your day is going like that, rejoice!
We may rejoice when things go our way. But the Apostle Paul encouraged the Philippians to “rejoice in the Lord always” while he was imprisoned! That echoed Christ’s message of the Beatitudes. Happiness or blessing or joy are not dependent on circumstances but on one’s trusting attitude and gratitude to God, who not only redeems us and our situations but has immediate and eternal purposes for us. God’s assuring presence, peace and comfort can even penetrate the foggy mysteries of suffering and give us cause to rejoice within a darkened, threatening world. His grace and power become evident when we are weak.
He walks with us through the deep waters and fires that otherwise might consume our souls ( Isaiah43:2) He gives endurance and encouragement. He is the God of hope who gives peace to those who trust in Him (Romans15:5,13). He is the Shepherd and Overseer of our souls (1Peter 2:25) and walks us to still waters and and nourishing pastures (Psalm 23). He is the God over impossibilities (Luke 1:37). He is the One who through our faith empowers us to move mountains and defeat giants which obstruct and loom over us. ( Matthew 17:20) H makes us more than we can be through our own efforts. God’s love does not let us go (Hebrews 13:5). He is for us. Who can stand against us? (Romans 8:31)
And we have His presence and power because of what Christ has done for us. Faith is the victory that overcomes this disruptive, noisy, distressed, and pressurized world. (1John 5:4)
Perhaps today is worth celebrating!