Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again – rejoice! … Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. [Philippians 4:4,6-7 (NLT)]
Yesterday was a day of frustrations and I had difficulty keeping things in perspective. Starting at 5:00 AM, my perfectly planned day turned upside down. After discontinuing personally emailing my messages to sixty people and reassuring all of my readers they would continue to receive these daily devotions if they signed up to receive them directly from WordPress, they didn’t (at least not for several hours)! After waiting for an answer from “Help” and never getting one, I eventually figured out what to do. Needless to say, I was not a happy blogger!
While your project may not be writing a blog and you may not have encountered unexplained “technical difficulties,” we’ve all had those days when nothing, absolutely nothing, goes right. You read the directions three times and they still make no sense, you wait all day for the cable man who never shows up, you realize an essential ingredient for dinner is missing minutes before the guests arrive, the new sweater with the directions “lay flat to dry” gets tossed in the dryer, you fruitlessly search all day for the receipt you need for the accountant, you forget the 20% off coupon when shopping, you burn the brownies for that night’s meeting, you get stuck in traffic when you’re already late, there’s a plumbing disaster in the bathroom, mud gets tracked onto the new carpet, the tire is flat, your phone goes dead in the middle of an important call, you delete rather than save, or the traffic cop doesn’t believe in giving you “five miles over.” It’s days like these, filled with relatively small annoyances and frustrations, that can so easily rob of us peace and joy.
Paul was in chains in a Roman prison and facing the very real possibility of execution. That certainly makes for a bad day and he had every reason to be depressed and discouraged. Yet Paul told the church at Philippi to rejoice. Moreover, he seems downright contented, peaceful and filled with thanks. If Paul could find joy in the direst of circumstances, why should we allow the unimportant aggravations of everyday life ruin our day and rob us of peace?
I pray that today will not be another “one of those days” for you or me. If it is, however, I pray that we, like Paul, will find peace, serenity and strength in the power of Jesus Christ.
We think we know what will make us happy. Seldom do we readily accept that painful moments are often the price tags for peaceful, happy times. Nor do we appreciate that happiness lives within each of us; never is it intrinsic to the events we experience. [From “Each Day a New Beginning” by Karen Casey]
Devotions of the Heart 