Oh! What a Day...

 “This is the day the LORD has made. Let us rejoice and be glad today!”

                                                                               Psalm 118:24 – God’s Word © 

 

As I stepped out the front door early this morning with the very excited dog pulling on his leash, I couldn’t help but to stop and stare at the beauty of the day and rejoice and be glad!  For as silly as it may sound, before my eyes I could see wonderful asphalt, sidewalks and huge patches of brown dormant grass around the neighborhood houses and throughout the golf course just a few feet away.  From everything covered in a thick layer of snow with an incredible windchill low of -18º last week, we stood there today, basking in the high forties with bright blue cloudless skies as far as the eye could see. 

I have to admit that it was just too much for me to contain, so I called out unto the Lord proclaiming, “This is the day that the LORD has made… and I can’t help but to rejoice and be happy today!”  When is the last time you started your day off like that?  Hopefully it was today!

I had started my day off a couple of hours earlier than our walk, thinking about how much God loves you and me.  I took a long look at a particular line in Paul’s prayer in Ephesians chapter three, where he prays “that Christ will live and thrive in us through our CURRENT, ACTIVE faith and that the intimate depth of Christ’s love for each of us will continue to be, the good ground into which we are sinking our roots and is that on which we have our firm foundation.”  (Ephesians 3:17 – God’s Word © personalized) 

As I meditated on that reality this morning, I couldn’t help but think back of the multitude of examples throughout my life… and especially during the last eight years of Piper’s life where I attended to her for twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week… when it was only my personal “knowing” of the depths of Christ intimate love for both Piper and I, that got me through those intense periods of time that seemed simply unsurmountable.

Then when I stepped out our front door today, I was once again, overcome with thankfulness, rejoicing and heartfelt happiness for the absolute beauty of that moment where I could see a visual representation of just how much Jesus loves me… and of how far He continues to take me from the hard times in this life and into the continuing plan and purposes that He still has for me to fulfill.  Ephesians 1:10 tells that “God plans to bring all of our history to its goal in Christ... so that Christ would continue to be the head of everything in heaven and on earth... for both you and me!" (God’s Word © - personalized) 

So YEAH!  Today is turning out to be a GREAT day of rejoicing and gladness, just as the Psalmist wrote of in Psalm 118:24.  I would have to believe that David was feeling some of the same awesome feelings that I’ve been experiencing today when he wrote this prose.  In the original Hebrew, the word “rejoice” literally means “to (physically) spin around” while being “glad” is an encouragement “to brighten up, to cheer up or to be gleesome!”

I don’t know what it is about me… but there are times that I have to move and physically demonstrate my feelings of joy and happiness!  I still remember the looks I got the first time I raised my hands in the middle of a very moving group prayer at a watchnight service during the first New Year’s Eve service that Piper and I went to at our Baptist church a few months after we got married.  Being outwardly emotional wasn’t the norm at that church… until then!

Sometimes you just gotta move to express the joy that is exploding inside of you… Do any of you know what I am talking about?  My Pastor once took me aside after I had preached to the adult congregation on a Sunday morning… reminding me that I wasn’t in the youth or Children’s Church services and that I needed to show a little more self-restraint when before the adults!  What can I say… When I get excited about the things of God… it just sort of pops out of me and it is very difficult for me to not let it out!

Well… that’s exactly the way I felt this morning!  So, I sang, smiled, shouted “Halleluiah!” and even joked with the dog all the way to the still frozen pond and back home again!  … But that’s me… that’s the way I have to express my rejoicing and gladness before that Lord. 

How do you do it?  How do you express those moments of rejoicing and gladness that pop up inside of you when He touches your life like He did mine this morning?

If you’re anything like me… then you’ve just got to sing and shout declaring with great emotion and abandonment that:

“This is the day the LORD has made. Let us rejoice and be glad today!”

                                                                             Psalm 118:24 – God’s Word ©

And now… well… just try and stay quiet and calm for the rest of the day!  But whatever you do and however you do it… just keep expecting God’s best for you today!