“This is the Lord’s doing;
It is marvelous in our eyes.
This is the day which the Lord hath made;
We will rejoice and be glad in it.”
Psalm 118:23-24
O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good:
because his mercy endureth for ever.
The LORD is my strength and song, and is become my salvation.
Open to me the gates of righteousness:
I will go into them, and I will praise the LORD:
This gate of the LORD, into which the righteous shall enter.
I will praise thee: for thou hast heard me, and art become my salvation.
This is the LORD’S doing;
it is marvelous in our eyes.
This is the day which the LORD hath made;
we will rejoice and be glad in it.
Psalm 118:1, 14, 19-21, 23, 24
As a young girl, I remember one morning coming into the kitchen where my Mother was fixing her morning coffee. She greeted me with a semi-cheery, “Good morning”, which I countered with a rhetorical question, “What’s so good about it?” (I probably had a test that day, or something else of equal misfortune).
But her sincere reply stopped me in my contemplating tracks, and has directed my thought pattern over the years.
“Any day that God gives you is a good day,” she wisely replied.
How true are those words! Isaiah talks about our lives being one snip of a chord away from death. None of us know when we will take our last breath. None of us know if we will see tomorrow. None of us know if we will even see the next moment; only the present moment is assured.
Life is a gift from our eternal and loving Father. He created each of us individually. No one, no matter what the circumstance, was “accidently” given life. It’s an ongoing gift that is renewed for us daily.
But another gift has been given to us also, and that is the gift of salvation. The special “day” that is spoken of here in these verses is the day that Jesus redeemed man back to God, after the sin of man thrust all of us into eternal separation.
We can find occasion every day to rejoice in the fact that Our Lord has given us the gift of life. It can be celebrated, appreciated, and spent for God’s glory.
But even more so, we can celebrate the fact that Jesus is our Redeemer, and echo the psalmist by saying,
[ctt template=”3″ link=”Nrpza” via=”no” ]“Oh, let’s give thanks to our Lord; He is so good: His mercy endures forever!” Psalm 118:1[/ctt]
