The Tribune

By Rev Dr J Emmette Weir

"This is the day that the Lord hath made, we will rejoice and be glad in it." - Psalm 118:25

What is the first thing you do as soon as you wake up in the morning? I mean, the very first thing. Turn on the radio or TV? Make a cup of coffee/tea? Read the newspapers? Engage in some form of exercise? Go online?

While all these ways of beginning a new day are, to some extent, commendable, it is submitted that the very best way to begin a new day is by offering praise and thanksgiving to Almighty God.

In this regard, I recall a young Christian gentleman who told me many years ago that he was helped in his own journey of faith by the example of his grandmother. Like a considerable number of Bahamians, including this writer, he was deeply influenced by his grandmother. Well, he testified that every morning as soon as his grandmother opened her eyes, she engaged in prayer. "Rev," he said, "before she did anything else, before she prepared our breakfast or even put on her glasses or her slippers, she prayed." What a testimony!

Now, there are many reasons why we should begin the day with prayer. Let me share some of them with you.

First and foremost, we should begin the day with a prayer of thanksgiving to God for sparing our lives to see the dawn of a new day. The other day I read somewhere a statistic which I found most amazing, even shocking and very sobering. It was revealed that every night on planet Earth as many as 20,000 people who go to bed never wake up. They die in their sleep! Just think of it.

There are thousands who will go to bed tonight the same time as you who will not see the light of tomorrow. How can we reflect profoundly upon this reality without giving thanks to God for preserving our life to see a new day? Indeed, when we think about the miraculous manner in which the Lord has watched over us, enabling us to keep on breathing during the long hours of sleep, we can do nothing but praise and thank Him as soon as we open our eyes at the dawn of a new day.

So the second reason why we should begin the day with prayer is the realisation that the day belongs to God. He is the Creator of all things visible and invisible. Beginning this way prevents us from becoming arrogant and proud of what we have done. We realise that we are weak and subject to disease and death; that we are sinful and easy to go astray. Concisely, we are made to realise that we must depend upon God if we are to live authentically.

This brings us to the third reason why we should begin the day with prayer. When we reflect upon the fact that the new day comes and moves on and that we can do nothing to change that, then we are made painfully aware that it is essential that we use the house, minutes, and yea, seconds of this new day to the best of our ability. For, what is exciting about a new day is that it brings us new opportunities. Yes, it presents us with new opportunities to succeed where we have failed in the past, new opportunities for friendships and meeting new people, to seek reconciliation to God and to others, new opportunities for those who profess to follow Christ to do good where we have failed our Master in the past, and like Peter, to be given new opportunities to serve Him. (John 20)

You see, it is no use, indeed counterproductive to dwell on the failures and frustrations and disappointments of yesterday. That only leads us to discouragement and the failure to see the new opportunities of today!

As it is often truly said, "There is no use crying over spilt milk" or as St Paul has exhorted, we simply must move on to grasp today's opportunities "forgetting the things which are behind" (Philippians 3:14).

By the same token, we must not become so proud of our past achievements that we indulge in them, often as a substitute for failure to take advantage of today's challenges. Success can be as great an obstacle to progress as failure in the past. After Jesus had completed a very active day of preaching, teaching, and healing in Capernaum, He rose early in the morning, left that village and went to pray, to enter into deep communion with His Heavenly Father. His disciples went seeking Him and when they found Him, with great excitement they urged Him to rerun to Capernaum, where His ministry had been "a smashing success."

"All people are talking about You," they exclaimed as they invited Him to go back to Capernaum. But the Master was not swayed by the success of the past. He declared to them, "Let us go to the neighbouring towns, so that I may proclaim the message to the neighbouring towns there also, for this is what I came out to do." (Mark 1:39, NRSV)

You see, Jesus was a man with a mission. He did not allow success one day to keep Him from moving on to meet the challenges of the next.

Remember that Dr Myles Munroe always exhorted us to bear in mind that God has a purpose for our lives, as does Bishop Laish Boyd and other ministers of the Gospel. It is most sobering and challenging to realise that many do not fulfil the divine purpose for living, not because of failures and frustrations but because, having achieved a little success, they become complacent and so do not take advantage of the new opportunities of life.

Then, there are those who fail in life, not because of concentration on the past, but because of dreaming of the future, without taking steps to realise their dreams today. I once read what was described as "the comic description of a failure in life." Concisely, if you want to advance in life, if you are to fulfil God's purpose for your life, then you must neither indulge in thinking about yesterday, nor expend much energy in worrying about tomorrow (Matthew 5). Rather, you are in alignment with God's purpose for your life when you use, to the best of your ability God's gifts to you…today! So, let us, forgetting the failures and successes of yesterday, and not wasting our time and energy worrying about tomorrow, begin this day thanking God for His goodness and looking forward to its opportunities with confidence, joy, and faith, seeking to convey to others the love of Christ, our Saviour and Lord!