Monday Morning Devotion-June 27, 2022
Do it for a Day
And God said: “Let There Be Light and there was Light. God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning. ---the first day. Genesis 1:3 (NIV)
We were on a trip to the Holy Land with members of our church. It was the day that we
were going to visit Jerusalem. It would be the first time that Susette and I and most of our group had ever visited the city that appears 811 times in the King James version of the Bible.
The bus was rolling along and started up a hill and just as it reached the top, over the intercom the song: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the Holy City of God” blasted out and there it was. Right before our eyes as far as we could see was Jerusalem. What a breath-taking sight that was.
It is a moment that is vividly etched in my mind. I get chills each time I remember that pivotal moment of this special trip.
Dr. Tony Campolo was lecturing a class and he suddenly looked directly at a student in the front row and asked: “Young man how long have you lived?” The student answered with his age. Campolo responded: “ No! No! No. That’s not how long you have lived. “
Then he told the class about when he was 9-years old and his class made a field trip to the Empire State Building. When they reached the top and he stepped onto the observation deck and took his first look at New York City stretching out before them he was awestruck. He said if he lived a million years that moment would be a part of his consciousness.
Mark Batterson writes in Win the Day: 7 Daily Habits to Help You Stress Less & Accomplish More, that in calculating how long you have really lived it’s not a matter of calculating age. It is more difficult quantifying life because “Time is measured in minutes, while life is measure in moments. Those Jerusalem moments. Those Empire State Building moments.
According to psychologists Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert, the average person spends 46.9 percent of their time thinking about something other than what they are doing in the present moment.
Batterson says: “The future is right here, right now---the eternal now. Heaven is invading earth.” He quotes Frank Laubach: “Every now is an eternity, if it is full of God.”
With that in mind just what does it mean to win the day and how do we do it?
First, we must “bury dead yesterdays.’ Memory is a blessing and a curse. Without it we would have to relearn everything every day. The challenge is remembering right! If we want God to do something new we can’t keep doing the same old thing.
To make significant and lasting changes you need to first answer this question:
“Can you do it for a day?”
Many times, we let ourselves get overwhelmed by considering the size of the problem!
Batterson points out: “The odds of success get greater as the time compartments get smaller. If you get it down to day-tight compartments, anything is possible!”
“No matter the size of the problem you are facing you’ve got to win the day in front of you. Then do it two days in a row and you’ve got a winning streak going.”
The first thing you have to do in order to win the day is to bury dead yesterdays. Get rid of those past offenses, mistakes, misfortunes. Don’t let them keep dragging you down.
Then you must flip the script. “If you want to change your life, start by changing your story.”
A guy named Michael King attended a gathering of the Baptist World Alliance in Berlin. There he became captivated by the story of Martin Luther, the great reformer. Back home he changed his name to Martin Luther King. Then he changed the name of his son as well. While relatives still called the son Mike. The rest of the world knew him as Dr. Martin Luther King.
Maybe your life isn’t what you want it to be but you don’t have to change your name. Just flip the script so that the story you are telling yourself is fresh, new and exhilarating. It is a story that will enable you to throw off the past…to flip the script…and move ahead.
August 22, 1851, Commodore John Cox Stevens and his six-man crew won the America’s Cup, a 53-mile regatta. They successfully defended their title each year for 132 years. On September 26, 1983, Australia II, skippered by John Bertrand, ended the longest winning streak with a forty-one-second margin of victory.
How did Australia end the 132-year streak? They flipped-the script by convincing themselves that winning was possible. Several years before the Australian skipper Mike Fletcher read the classic Jonathan Livingston Seagull . The moral of that story is: “begin by knowing that you have already arrived”. In other words, begin with the end in mind.
Inspired by Seagull’s story line Fletcher made a recording of the Australian team winning. It had narration and the sound of a sailboat cutting through the water. He gave a copy to each member of the crew with the instructions to listen to it twice a day. They did this every day for three years. Before even setting sail, they had won the race 2,190 times.
Remember everything in your past is preparation for something in your future! God doesn’t waste days, especially bad days!
Here’s the hypothesis that Mark Batterson has formed:
Almost anybody can accomplish almost anything if they work at it long enough, hard enough and smart enough.
Can you do it? Can you win the day and dispel self-defeating problems?
Yes, you can! First bury those previous disappointments, failures and defeats,
then flip the script. Start building a strong success story by recalling the feelings you had in
those thrilling, life-changing moments of the past.
You’ll be amazed at how those problems you feared were insurmountable can be conquered. God created that first day in one day. Changing your life story can be a one-day adventure, too.
Prayer: Father help us to flip the script on those stories that are self-defeating and follow your lead in winning the day. Amen!