Starting Now

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I just put a pan of pathetic-looking dough in the pre-heated oven.  "Alexa, set a timer for 35 minutes."

"Timer set for 35 minutes," the voice repeats.  "Starting now."

This is the third day of the new year.  And we already feel behind.  We still have cartons full of stuff left undone from 2021. We want this year to be different.

I cannot rewind, but I have today.  This year is not a matter of seeing how much I can get done, but seeking God in it.  When we meet with God every morning and walk with Him each day, we find the world there.  We see differently, respond differently, and walk differently.

God does not just fill our days, but fulfills our time.  And that means for us to be faithful, even in the little ordinary things--which are never so little or ordinary.  Eternity is composed of ordinary days with God's extraordinary designs spread all over them.

Last evening, I was texting with one of my son-in-laws about a recipe for making rice krispy bars with Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal.  "That is now on my to try list," he said.

I love that.  Not imagining lofty resolutions, vague plans for someday, or a list of easily erasable intentions, but to try new things.  Not make new habits but to establish new patterns.  To think again about what we do, how we do it, how to approach the same tasks with a different heart.

Not be successful but faithful in this day that the LORD has made, no matter what He has placed before us. We never can know how God is using us, but we can be assured that He is.

The timer just rang.  I removed from the hot oven a loaf resembling a brick on a construction site.  It never rose.  But I am willing to try again.  And again.

Our days are built on one choice at a time, one day at a time, one afternoon, one hour, what I choose to do in the now and in the next, and who I am becoming.  God redeems this new day and this new year.

Starting now.

 

"Teach us to number our days."  Psalm 90. 12