As I push my cart toward the open doors, I hear a man ask the bagger in the neighboring check-out lane how she’s doing. “Oh, you know,” she says, “just another day.”
And I wonder how many are existing this way during social distancing and sheltering-in-place.
How many are tracking the reports, clinging to speculation, just waiting for the day they lift the restrictions so we can get back to “living?”
We long for continuity and when that’s disturbed, we search for a future focal point, a time frame of sorts, to provide hope and inform us how much longer we have to wait until things return to normal—whatever normal may be.
But while we’re scouting the landscape of “what will be,” the “right now” is happening without us. Believe me, I know. In the last two years, I’ve tasted and seen the anxiety and discontentment that comes from straining to see what’s up ahead and missing the joys of the journey. I’ve asked God to change me, to return me to the land of the living where I can taste and see his goodness for the rest of my days (Psalm 27:13, NIV).
Living is not waiting for the elusive “better” days—the diaper-free days, work-free days, school-free days, COVID19-free days.
Living is choosing to believe this isn’t just another day.
It’s today. A brand-new day for us to experience and not merely exist.
This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it (Psalm 118:24, ESV) This is a day for the mountains and hills to burst into song before you, and the trees of the field to clap their hands (Isaiah 55:12b, NIV).
Go out in joy and be led forth in peace (Isaiah 55:12a).