Today is the First Day of the Rest of My Life

 

This catchphrase has never been more true for me than it is today. 

41 years after being hired by Carol Clark to unload trucks and manage the storeroom at Columbia Regional Hospital, I find myself without a job. For the first time in over four decades, I woke up this morning and it wasn't a weekend, it wasn't a vacation day or sick day or personal day, but I didn't have to go to work.

When you've followed the habit of the 40-hour week/8-hour day for several decades, the routine can get to be a drag. It was kind of nice this morning to get up early, go to the pool at the gym, and spend nearly an hour and a half working out, never wondering what time it was getting to be.

It sounds, I know, like the description of someone on his first day of retirement. That might happen for me in four months or two years or five years, but that's not why I'm unemployed.

I got laid off from my job. Thanks to COVID-19, my career ended short of qualifying for full pension benefits. I'm getting paid my full salary through the end of 2020, which relieves some urgency. Nevertheless, I find myself job-seeking for the first time since April 1979.

For today, though, I just want to enjoy the freedom and contemplate what to do with the unscheduled and non-routine days ahead.

 Not focused on yesterday

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:13-14

For the past four decades my primary focus has not been on my job. I've never been a company man or a career climber. There have been a few times I'm sure my bosses have wished I would be more dedicated to the job.  But it was never true.

Sure, I cared about my job. During the past two weeks that they kept me around to finish out my time, I was surprised to discover how much I do care about both the minutiae and the big picture of my job.

But I've always had two motivations for working. One of those was to support my family. The other was to have the freedom to do whatever God had in store for me.

As a follower of Christ, my real career has always been to follow him, leaning hard into whatever tasks and purposes he put before me. That has meant teaching, preaching, counseling, small group leading, worship leading, mentoring, servant leadership, subversive following, foster parenting, home schooling, writing, campus ministry, prison ministry, and church ministry.  And also going to work every day, whether at the office or in my rideshare car, always staying attuned to divine appointments to share the world's God-colors and God-flavors with the people I've encountered.

Sometimes I've done a poor job of pursuing that career. Some of my co-workers who have known me best are the ones who know that best.

But as I begin the rest of my life today, no matter what it winds up looking like from a job perspective, I can't help but wonder what the Lord has in store for me next.

The goal to win the prize that Paul says he's pressing on toward in that verse from Philippians is not heaven. Yes, God is calling Paul - and me, and you - heavenward. But the goal and the prize are the things he mentioned in the previous verses. 

3:8  the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord 

3:9   and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ 

3:10   I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death

That's the goal. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow, I want to know Christ and to become more like him.

Seize Today

So teach us to number our days, That we may present to You a heart of wisdom. Psalm 90:12

The chief portion of wisdom I've learned about numbering my days is that every day is number 1. If yesterday I made a mess of representing Christ to my world, today is Day #1 of starting again. If I did a great job of knowing Christ yesterday, I can't settle in and count on yesterday's success. Today is still the first day.

My routine for today is all shot, at least in terms of my job of 41 years.

My routine for Day #1, though, is clear. 

• Dedicate today to the Lord. Exodus 32:29
• Deny myself today, take up my cross, and follow Jesus. Luke 9:23
• Keep my ear tuned for whatever God wants to teach me today. Proverbs 8:34
• Eagerly study the scriptures today. Acts 17:11
• Look for opportunities to encourage whoever God puts into my path today. Hebrews 3:13

I just did that last one by inviting you to join me in intentionally making today the first day of the rest of your life, pursuing the only goal that lasts.

In the day of prosperity be happy, But in the day of adversity consider— God has made the one as well as the other. Ecclesiastes 7:14

Psalm 119:172 Rigtheousness

May my tongue sing of your word,
 for all your commands are righteous.

Psalm 119:172

A few things I've learned about God's righteous commands during my travels on the one road:


All of God's commands are righteous because they all reflect the righteous heart of God. When I learned to focus my study and prayer on knowing the heart of God, rather than on dissecting the commands, obedience and faithfulness became much easier.


Time spent in the Word led me to God's commands about righteousness and purity, like II Timothy 2:22

Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

Moral purity has always been a struggle for me. Oh the joy of realizing I should stop obsessing about those evil desires. I've learned instead to pursue purity by pursuing a pure obsession with God's heart of righteousness, faith, love and peace.


I spent years trying to prove I possessed all the right opinions about all the right things. After I learned to stop taking so much pride in my opinions, I then got off track by becoming obsessed with demonstrating how I had reconsidered those opinions and now was in possession of a better brand of right opinions about the right things. Our obsession with being right is so difficult to shake.


I still remember the day I actually understood II Timothy 2:15 for the first time, after having considered it one of my favorite verses for years.

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. (II Timothy 2:15)

It shocked me when I realized how stupid I've been, only paying attention to the last part of the verse. Correctly handling the Word of truth is extremely important, but that's not the point. The goal isn't to prove my correct understanding of the Word of truth. It's to step up and present myself as a willing worker, approved by the blood of Christ. Only through doing the work given to me by God will I begin to correctly handle the word of truth.


It's not about carefully accumulating the right opinions. It's about training to be a workman after God's own heart.


The more I've allowed myself to walk alongside people whose beliefs and experiences are different than mine, God has proven this statement to be true:

The fruit of that righteousness will be peace; its effect will be quietness and confidence forever. (Isaiah 32:17)

I used to looked at those others as people to either avoid, tolerate, or correct. The fruit of my self-righteousness was arguing. I saw my job as letting them know I'm part of the "in" crowd and they're not, an attitude that only leads to belligerence and arrogance.

But once I learned to trust God and His righteous commands, I learned to see my interactions with the others on the one road as opportunities to bring out the God-flavors and God-colors of life.

Psalm 119:171 Tell It

I grew up with the sure knowledge that I was blessed to have born into a family that went to the right church and knew the right things. . . If the Truth was a place, we were already there. Our task was to bring people to the same place we were.

That's a quote from People of the Book, the blogpost at the beginning of my three-year-long trip diary through Psalm 119.

No doubt, I was blessed to have been born into a family that taught me to love God and His Word. For all the misdirected teaching and the self-righteousness of the "right church", I was getting a better start on the one road of life than most of the people I've encountered traveling alongside me over the past 60-plus years.

And no, I'm not talking about the "faith-only Baptists" or the "annual-communion heretics." I'm glad to claim many of them as my brothers and sisters and co-workers in Christ.

I 'm talking about the young lady in her 20's who admitted she had never been to church, not even once in her life. I'm talking about the 30-year old woman who admitted that the first time she was sent to prison was the first time in her life she had a bed of her own she could count on to be there each night. I'm talking about the co-worker who gave lip service to faith but had been raised in a streetwise culture of 'grab whatever you can whenever you can'.

Another thing that church taught me was about the greatest mission anyone could possibly have in life. Sure, the way I understood it back then ("our task was to bring people to the same place we were") was condescending and misdirected. But I've never lost sight of the lifelong call to be a reconciler, drawing people toward Christ (not to my church or my personal theology).

All of those people - all the others, the fellow travelers who aren't like me - they're all on the same road, traveling alongside me. They're all heading toward the same destination, whether they know it or not. That doesn't make me better than them. It doesn't mean I should avoid those other people and stick with the travelers who are like me.

My job is to help them all understand why we're all on this road together. If I don't tell them, they'll just keep on thinking we're all just plodding along aimlessly from birth to death.

I can't help them understand unless I'm actively, eagerly, and intentionally walking beside them, helping them along the way.

My job - your job - is to let our lips overflow with praise for the God who is also walking alongside us all.

May my lips overflow with praise,
 for you teach me your decrees.
Psalm 119:171

Psalm 119:170 Walking and Talking

May my supplication come before you;
 deliver me according to your promise.
Psalm 119:170

The most joyful and productive way to travel on the road of life is with continuous two-way communication with God. Supplications from you to God; promises from God to you.

Too often our supplications come in the form of random requests to God for help, while we're living life as we please. A more productive approach is to talk to God while reading about His promises in His Word. Put those promises to test in your life while asking God to help you live them out. Two way communication.

Since my heart attack I've prayed a lot to the Lord.

Oh Lord, won't you carry me over to another day of life, another year, another decade of life? I'm in a tough spot, Lord. Here's what I need. Give me what I want.

That's one-way communication.

My prayer life has been much more effective and joyful when I've buried myself in His Word and His promises. What does He have to say about living a healthy life? What are His promises for people who focus on a life spent serving Him?

Every day I refresh my knowledge of His promises and His purposes, to motivate myself for the day ahead. While I consider His Word, I pray for His help in living the the life He's laid out for me. I thank Him each morning for carrying me over to another day: a new day to find new ways to praise Him and draw others to Him.

Life on the one road can be hard. But you don't have to walk it alone.

Isn't it a long hard road, baby,
Isn't it a long hard road;
Isn't it a long hard road, baby,
Isn't it a long hard road;
But doesn't it feel good to know, baby,
You don't have to walk it alone.

Five Man Electrical Band

Psalm 119:169 Understand

May my cry come before you, LORD;
 give me understanding according to your word.

Psalm 119:169

Everyone I encounter on the one road is trying to understand life.

Many people desperately want to understand how to piece together a daily life that isn't a constant struggle. They see others who lead seemingly seamless lives, progressing forward on a straight line to some semblance of success. They long to understand the secret to such a life.

If they could only learn to cry out to the Lord without ceasing, every hour of every day. True understanding about purposeful living is available to all who seek Him and rely on His Word.

The lives of many more are disorganized and unproductive. Their focus is on the current moment, on the feelings they're grappling with right now. They want to understand how to get out of the cycle of poverty, the grip of addiction, the pipeline to prison, or the strait-jacket of mental illness. They don't understand why every move they make seems to take them further down into the whirlpool.

If they would learn to cry out to the Lord in the company of others who are also crying out to God for understanding, they might find a productive pathway to abundant living.

I walk the road of life with others who are wholeheartedly crying out for understanding of how they can live the sort of spiritual and purposeful life they crave. There's a knowledge in their hearts of the possibility of something more than physical existence. But that meaningful life remains just outside their grasp because the highest authorities they cry out to are so-called experts, the cultural gurus of wind-chasing.

If they ever actually consider the possibility of a god, of a higher power, something inside them pushes back against any possibility of actually knowing the One True God. If only they would cry out to the God who just might be there, they might discover he is there, and he is not silent.

All of  these people have at least one thing in common. They're all fellow travelers on the same road of life I'm on.

As I walk along, crying out to the Lord and seeking understanding through His Word, my purpose - and yours - should be to reach out and help our fellow travelers to understand the Word and to join us in crying out to the Lord.

Psalm 119:169-176 Taw

May my cry come before you, Lord;
 give me understanding according to your word.
May my supplication come before you;
 deliver me according to your promise.
May my lips overflow with praise,
 for you teach me your decrees.
May my tongue sing of your word,
 for all your commands are righteous.
May your hand be ready to help me,
 for I have chosen your precepts.
I long for your salvation, Lord,
 and your law gives me delight.
Let me live that I may praise you,
 and may your laws sustain me.
I have strayed like a lost sheep.
 Seek your servant, for I have not forgotten your commands.

Psalm 119:169-176

As David begins the final 8-verse stanza of this trip diary, each verse is a purpose statement.

This is why I'm on this road, he is saying. This is how I will travel on the one road. These are my goals as I walk down the path of life.

We all have the same one purpose in life.

We are all on that same one road. None of us walks it alone.

.

Psalm 119:168 Known

I obey your precepts and your statutes,
for all my ways are known to you. 

Psalm 119:168 

When I was young I took great pride in knowing myself and knowing the world around me. I can remember proudly telling my dad how self-aware I was one day while we were on our way somewhere in the car. I told him I had a special talent for for it.

I was extremely aware of his indifference, as evidenced by the distracted grunt he delivered as his response. I, in all my magnificent self-awareness, was completely unaware that I was full of baloney.

In college I told one of my friends that I always have a reason for every little thing I do. She told me that was kind of creepy.

I still can come across to people like I have an enormous amount of self confidence. I know who I am and I don't pretend to be something I'm not.

That's generally true. The problem is, I'm not always very proud of who I know myself to be.

I've learned I'm most confident when I trust God to know who I am. He knows everything about me. And in His Word I continually read things that strike me directly in the heart of who I am.

If only I had learned years earlier that the true key to knowing myself is through the precepts and statutes of the one who truly knows me.