Brighten Your Day

I have the bad habit of skipping to the last pages of a book to see how it ends while I am still in the middle of it. This habit annoyed first my Mom, then my friends, and finally even my own daughter. Often my impatience wouldn't be confined just to the books I read but also to what they were reading as well. Finally one day my daughter told me in exasperation, "Dad please just read a book one page at a time like everyone else!"

At times I haven't limited this bad habit to just books either. I have also tried to skip ahead in my own life and figure out what to do months and even years from now instead of embracing each day as God intended. I knew that the book of my life wasn't done yet and that I had many pages left to go. Still, that didn't stop me from trying to write the ending half-way through. Time and again, I would foolishly jump ahead and try to solve every conceivable problem before it happened so I could reach that storybook happily ever after ending. Life, however, doesn't work like that. God loves to surprise us, and you never know what new problem, change, or opportunity each new day will bring.

God in His loving wisdom has often had to remind me to relax, slow down and find His love and joy in each day. Recently when I found myself returning to that bad habit of rushing ahead and living in the future again, I found His truth coming from the lips of a special soul who gently told me I needed to "live one day at a time." When I heard those words I smiled, turned the book of my life back to the right page, and thanked God for today.

There is no skipping ahead in the book of life. Each of us has to live it one page and one day at a time. Each of us has to have faith in God to help us to write it line by line and moment by moment. Each of us has to trust that our Heavenly Father will bring our story to its perfect end.