Healthy Living

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This is a day. This is some day. This is some kind of day. Well, it's a day anyway. This is the day that the Lord has made. I will...
I will...
I will...
What WILL I do?

I will -- To have so few letters, those are two very large words. We are taught to pray according to the Lord’s will. We are taught to let Him be Lord over every situation of our lives. We are taught to leave everything in His hands. But the fact remains, He freely gave us wills. It is our choice to rejoice. However, it is difficult to rejoice and be glad in a day full of situations that would rather cause us to automatically become either angry or sad. Those reactions/emotions are human nature.

I woke up this morning feeling very angry. Anger is not an emotion that I, as a rule, have a problem with. But truthfully, I was up to my ears with people that should care but do not care about how I feel. That anger sent me running to the Lord. “I’m angry, Father!” It didn’t take me long to realize that all my anger was not going to change the situation. What it could do, however, was make me sick if I let it go on. So I chose to be sad instead.

Sadness -- Now that’s an emotion I’m TOO familiar with! My chest started that all too familiar aching. My eyes filled with tears. Fear set in -- “Am I going to wind up having a stroke or heart attack because I can’t handle my situation?” Of course, the sadness sent me running to the Lord. “I’m not angry because they don’t care. I’m sad. It hurts. Father, it hurts!” It didn’t take me long to realize that all my sadness was not going to change the situation. What it could do, however, was make me sick if I let it go on. So I chose to go back to bed.

I understood that my emotions hurt me more than they could ever hurt anyone else. Nobody benefits from them. I certainly don’t benefit from them. I was getting nowhere fast and I wanted out... out of the situation. But there’s no getting out of it. What is, is. It simply is. The Lord can change it, but He hasn’t, thus far, chosen to do so. This is the day that the Lord has made. What WILL I...

My great niece and nephew, Kacie and Jackson, were still in bed. Their Mom was gone to work and their Dad to a lodge breakfast. Instead of getting back into my bed, I walked into the room to lay down with Jackson in his Mommy and Daddy’s bed. That way, whenever he woke up he’d wake me up as well. I squinted in the low lighting to see where he was. I spotted those great big blue saucers. Those two kids have the biggest blue eyes I’ve ever seen. I don’t think either one of them ever blink.

He must have thought I was playing with him because he started giggling and pulled the covers up over his head. I really wanted to go back to sleep though. So, I crawled in bed next to him, closed my eyes, and laid really still. “Maybe he’ll go back to sleep in a minute.” And with that thought, I was suddenly in dreamland. I might have dreamed the story of Hezekiah’s illness and the promises of God to him in Isaiah 38. Well, I could have!

I couldn’t have been asleep ten minutes when I heard Kacie in bed with me. She was insisting that Jackson share. I opened my eyes to see those big blue saucers again and an ear-to-ear grin that was outlined in a thick coating of chocolate. What WILL I do? “Okay, Jack, give Sissy a piece of it.” Chocolate for breakfast -- I’m sure my niece will appreciate me.

This is the day that the Lord has made. I will, I will, I will rejoice and be glad in it! I don't have to be glad ABOUT my situations. But I choose to be glad and rejoice in the midst of those situations. Nothing will separate me from the LOVE OF GOD. And for THAT, I will rejoice and be glad IN this day.

Over the last several years, the Lord has promised me much and I’ve yet to see the manifestations of those promises. But I’m reminded of a rainbow incident and the following scripture: Numbers 11:23 The LORD answered Moses, “Is the LORD’s arm too short? You will now see whether or not what I say will come true for you.” I don’t know how He’s going to do it. I just know that He is going to restore to me double for all my losses. That’s a whole, whole lot of restoring.

In the meantime, I am going to pull my thick hair up into a high ponytail and I’m going out for a walk. (Kacie and Jackson’s Dad is home now.) I’m going to rejoice and be glad in this day. This day is the Lord’s will for me. Maybe I’ll see a pretty bluebird or two, or a cardinal, or a hummingbird. We have lots of those in this area. (Pres. Bush named the town less than ten miles from here the Bluebird Capitol of Texas when he was governor here.)

Maybe I’ll see some bluebonnets or Indian paintbrushes. We have lots of those too. Or maybe I’ll see a cottontail or some squirrels playing. Maybe I won’t see anything. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll be so flooded by the presence of the Holy Spirit that everything else will pale in comparison.

Whatever the Lord wills for me, so be it. But what is the Lord’s will for me?

Ephesians 1:9-14 And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession—to the praise of his glory. (verse 3 --Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.)

Romans 12:2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

As for my will:

I choose to be free! I choose to be born of the Spirit, with Abraham as my father and Sarah as my mother. I choose to rejoice in this day, in the day the Lord has made, in the Lord’s will for me, whatever that will may be.

Job 14:1-2 “Man born of woman is of a few days and full of trouble. He springs up like a flower and withers away; like a fleeting shadow, he does not endure.”
Galatians 4:22-23 and verse 27. (22) For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. (23) His son by the slave woman was born in the ordinary way; but his son by the free woman was born as a result of a promise.
(27) For it is written:
“Be glad, O barren woman,
who bears no children;
break forth and cry aloud,
you who have no labor pains;
because more are the children of the desolate woman
than of her who has a husband.”

And how do I know it is my choice to be born of the Spirit, to endure and not to born of woman (as in Job 14:1)? It is my choice! It is my will to rejoice and be glad in this day! I know this because of what I read in 1 John 5:14-15! This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.

And I am assured of being born of God and not of blood as well by what I read in John 1:11-13! He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.


And it’s pretty simple. All I ask for is the strength to endure the troubles of this day and the freedom to rejoice and be glad in it. And because those things are recorded in His Word as promises, I can know for a fact that those things are His will for me. Acts 20:24 However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace.
© Joyce Pool

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