A New Day

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The birds chirp. The sun rises. The house is blissfully quiet until the dog begins to shake as loud as he can.

It’s a new day. A new day for mercies, for grace, for strength; for courage, for patience, for gratitude.

With a new day comes another opportunity: an opportunity to pursue holiness, to forsake our old selves, to forget what lies behind and look to what lies ahead. A new day brings reasons to rejoice, to hope, to sing, to laugh, to worship.

Many times, we allow new days to burden us. Waking up doesn’t make us feel refreshed, but just more exhausted than the day before. When we take our eyes off Jesus, new days feel loathsome. New days don’t feel so new, but just a dreadful extension of the awful previous day. With our eyes off Jesus, new days are new occurrences of anxiety and shame and guilt and fear. Our emotions get the better of us and we are fixated on all the negative things in our lives. The new day just brings the same issues.

Do you feel that? I do. We all get stuck in that rut. We take our focus off the Lord and everything in our life seems to spiral. Our kids (if we have them) don’t behave so our patience runs thin. We yell. We are rude to our spouse because things aren’t in our control and aren’t going as planned. Work is a nightmare and compounds the stress. We neglect our spiritual disciplines, which makes everything worse.

Have you felt that? I have. It’s okay to admit it—it’s not okay to stay there.

We must—must!—focus on Jesus. Read Colossians 3:1-15 each morning and fixate on Jesus. Focus on his life, his death, his resurrection. Focus on heaven, the things unseen verses things seen. Focus your faith on glory, not on the next thing that might cause you anxiety. Focus on God’s care for you, for He loves you.

A new days does, indeed, bring new choices. You can choose to focus on Jesus, or focus on yourself. The former will bring joy and refreshed eyes even amid hard times; the latter brings unending anxiety and fear.

The new day is coming, and you can choose to see the beauty, the majesty, the glory of the Lord. You can see the glorious nature of our God and His love and care for you in all spheres of life.