Tag Archives: Living in Christ

The Difference a Day Makes

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What difference does a day make? Is it important in the grand scheme of things? Of course, it is. We all know that things can turn from bad to good in the course of a day, or from good to bad. We can find ourselves with more. We can find ourselves with less. We can gain it all or lose it all. We can be on top of the world or at our lowest point. A day can be an utter tragedy or a total victory.

A day can be something we want to remember forever, or something we want to forget forever. We can experience our greatest pride or our deepest shame, our highest joy or our deepest sorrow. We can have it all together, or we can have zero control. A day can be full of extremes and polar opposites, or it can be completely mundane. But each day is important. Each moment of each day is important because every decision we make determines who we are and the course of the rest of the day. We have choices to make about our time: whether we will squander it, save it, spend it, share it, savor it, or separate ourselves from it.

We talk about doing things tomorrow: I will start my diet tomorrow. I will talk to my child in a better way tomorrow. I will start that project tomorrow. I will begin my new year’s resolutions in the new year. But there is no need to wait until tomorrow to change. The change can begin now. Even if we are at the mercy of the clock or the calendar, change can begin in our minds, our attitudes, our hearts.

In a moment, life can change. Can we resolve to use our moments rather than waste them? We can take this moment to change, to become more like Christ—to grow, love, serve, and change the world for Him. What we do today can truly make a difference. This difference can make the day.

So, if we have failed and things look hopeless, we need to remember God’s mercies are new every morning.1 We don’t have to wait until tomorrow to get those mercies because He gave us new ones today. Today, we can show integrity, love, compassion, forgiveness, and repentance. We can do the right thing. We can turn away from the wrong. And tomorrow can find us in a new place, if not physically, then spiritually. We can grow. And the shape we become will be because of the choices we made today, at this moment.

Sometimes we mark the day as significant such as when there is a holiday or special occasion. Other times, the day is viewed as ordinary and just a typical passage of time—an old day ends and a new one begins. And now here we are changing from 2022 to 2023 and marking it as significant, but every day after January 1st can be just as significant. We can choose the brightest tomorrow by choosing the Savior today. Our souls can be saved, and our lives can be changed forever. We can turn our faces fully to Christ rather than living with our backs to Him. We can leave behind the old and step into the new. Our days can be different, if we will fill them with Him. We can give Him our grief and pain and take on His strength and power. We can walk the road He has intended for us rather than go our own way. We can say “This is the day the Lord has made” and ask ourselves what we will make of it.2 What will we do with what He gives us? Will we make the day about Him or about ourselves? Will we enter His presence, enjoy His blessings, and bask in His love? Will we shine for Him and show His glory?

This is the difference a day makes. How will our day make a difference?

“For ‘whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’”3

***

“Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”4

NOTES

1 See Lamentations 3:22–23.

2 See Psalm 118:24a.

3 Romans 10:13

4 Philippians 3:13–14

Scriptures taken from the New King James Version of the Holy Bible, ©1982 by Thomas Nelson.

©Text and photo Francee Strain, January 1, 2023.

Unbound–Part 1 of 3

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Six days before the Passover Feast—the last meal Jesus would have before His crucifixion—He paid a visit to his friend Lazarus and sat down to have supper with him. This was not the first time Jesus had come to visit Lazarus. As a matter of fact, they shared quite a history together. At one point, Jesus had offered Lazarus a most extraordinary invitation…

“Lazarus was not doing anything when his invitation arrived. He was getting nowhere in life. Actually, He was dead! But despite that he no longer lived and breathed, he received an invitation. This was a most extraordinary invitation, and it did not come in the mail! It was personally delivered by Jesus Himself.

John 11:1–44 gives the account. Jesus had been preaching in another town when word arrived that His good friend Lazarus was ill. Jesus did not immediately depart for the city of Bethany in order to heal Lazarus; instead, He remained where He was for two more days, finishing up what He was there to do. When it was in God’s timing, and after the work had been completed in the place where Jesus was, He then traveled to see Lazarus.

When Jesus arrived in Bethany, He was greeted with criticism and the accusation that He was arriving too late because Lazarus had already been dead for four days! Count them—four. Four days of being dead. Four days that passed while Jesus worked and traveled somewhere else. But Jesus did not allow this unwelcoming reception to stop Him from delivering His invitation to Lazarus. He went to the tomb where Lazarus was buried, told people to move the stone away from the mouth of the tomb, and then proceeded with His commanding voice to issue an invitation for Lazarus to live again. Jesus cried out, “Lazarus, come forth” (v. 43), and Lazarus came out of the tomb. Here we get a really good look at what Lazarus was doing in life. He was dead in a tomb, sealed behind a stone, and bound in graveclothes. But extraordinary things happened when Jesus showed up on the scene. First of all, an invitation was given to a dead person. Second, God’s resurrection power was seen. Third, a dead man got back to living his life. If this does not prompt us to come when God calls, I do not know what will!

God extends the same invitation to us that He extended to Lazarus. God is calling us to come out from death unto life—from spiritual death unto spiritual life. This is eternal life: to know Jesus Christ (John 17:3). No matter what stones are trapping us in life, no matter what we are wrapped up in and tied up in, no matter what stench we are covered with, no matter what cold darkness we are surrounded by, no matter how alone and laid out flat we are, no matter what others say about us, no matter how hopeless things look—even if it appears that our best days are behind us—He wants to free us from spiritual bondage and restore us to life and relationships. He wants us to be healthy and vibrant again, breathing and glowing, being and doing, loving and being loved. He wants us to live! He has placed the breath of physical life into us, but He also calls us to live with the breath of the Holy Spirit.

But does it ever seem to us, instead, like God is far away—in some other city or some other universe? Does it seem that He is ignoring both our pleas and the pleas of those who are telling Him we need help? Are we surrounded by people who are lamenting our situations? Do we have people in our lives who are like Mary and Martha, who accuse God of letting us suffer? Do they believe that if He was truly in our lives, things like this would not be happening to us? At one point, my son questioned why he should continue to pray for me when God was not giving me physical healing. Several people who are saddened by my chronic illnesses tell me that these illnesses should not be a part of my life. What do all of us honestly think and feel?

Does it seem like God is taking His time in getting to where we are and responding to our needs? Has it been more than four days—a lot more? Are we wondering whether He will ever come? Do we fear that He is too busy taking care of other things in other places to have any time for us? Do we think it is already too late and that the situation has passed beyond His power to help? Have we resigned ourselves to permanently live in our current states? Have we given up the fight? Have we stopped asking for help? Have we almost ceased to breathe? I have news for us—good news. We can change, although our circumstances remain the same. We can have a full and joyfully abundant life now—despite the pain—because Jesus came to give us that abundant life. It seems improbable, impractical, and impossible, yet it is true. But we have to make the choice to come out of the tomb and get out of those graveclothes. We have to come forth from the  unpleasantness. We have to respond to His call to leave behind the things He wants us to leave behind, and live.”1

1 Francee Strain, No Ordinary Invitation: Called to Live a Life of Eternal Purpose, (Bloomington, IN: WestBow Press, 2017), 28-30.

Photography by Francee Strain, ©2018