God Is Very Good at Making Days

“Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!  Because His mercy endures forever.” –Psalm 118:1 (NKJV).  “Then God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.  And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness.  God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night.  So the evening and the morning were the first day.” –Genesis 1:3-5 (NKJV).  “This is the day which the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.”  -Psalm 118:24 (NKJV).

Do you ever try to stretch your imagination and think how it was before God spoke and created day and night, light and darkness, the world and everything in it,  the sky, the seas, the firmament, the animals, the birds, the creatures everywhere, and man and woman?  From nothing—He created everything in perfect order!  With the power of His word He created!

God has been very good at making days from that time henceforth.  At first, calendars were not like we know them today, with 365 days per year except that every fourth year came leap year with 366 days.  Then, man with his ingenuity, and no doubt inspired by God, wrapped the days in countable time called weeks, months, years, decades and centuries.  Even the day/night sequence was paced with twenty-four hours, or 1,440 minutes, or 86,400 seconds.  Rev. Robert J. Morgan wrote:  “God is in the day-making business.  The Ancient of Days is the Manufacturer of Days…One new day rolls off God’s assembly line every twenty-four hours, right on schedule, each one unique”  (100 Bible Verses Everyone Should Know by Heart.  Nashville, TN:  B&H Publishing Group, 2010, p. 165).  Just to consider receiving a new day every twenty-four hours is phenomenal!

Consider the question:  How shall we use the new day allotted to us?  How shall we fill the gift of today that God is so good at making?

I heard of a widow who was feeling sorry for herself and her plight as she faced the prospect of days alone after her husband died.  Then she was reading her Bible and Psalm 118:24 seemed to leap out at her:  “This is the day which the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.”  She decided that she would use a glass-carving instrument and engrave the verse into the panes of the window at which she stood each morning immediately after arising.  Seeing the words carved into the glass became a good reminder to her that each day was a brand new gift from God, made especially for her.  Why should she feel such self-pity when God had provided so bountifully for her?  With the psalmist, she resolved to be glad and rejoice in each day.  Following that experience, her life changed from one of self-pity to one of praise, thanksgiving and seeking to help others.

A Bible dictionary defines “rejoice”  as to feel gladness, to exult and be jubilant, to have a heart that sings.  Vivian Green gave us these classic lines about how to rejoice:  “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass.  It’s learning how to dance in the rain.”

 Here is a quatrain of praise I wrote that can be sung to  “The Old 100^th”—Doxology—tune:

Oh, Lord I thank you for today;

Praise for Your guidance on my way.

When nighttime falls may all be well;

At last in Heaven may I dwell.   Amen.    –Ethelene Dyer Jones  06.22.2014