What A Wonderful Day!

2 Jan

“Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.”  ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

We are quick, are we not, to lock in on the negative things that happen to us in our lives?  We could have had the most resoundingly awesome day that we have ever had and, at the last minute before going home from work or school, someone may have said something to us that set us off.  Instead of thinking about the wonderful day we have just experienced, we go home angry or depressed.  It is sad when that happens.  However, that happens more often than we would probably care to admit.

What does that?  Does a person say something to us that makes us react that way?  Do experiences do something that force us to react that way?  The quick answer would be, “No.”  It is not an external force that “makes” us feel the way we do.  It is choice.  Pure and simple.  Choice.

That is why Ralph Waldo Emerson instructed us to “write it on our hearts” that each day was going to be the best day that we have experienced.  If we write it on our hearts, if we lock it in our minds, then, no matter what someone says to us or what comes our way, nothing can unsettle us and make us think that our day was bad.

We have most likely gone through the exercise the past couple of days of making New Year’s Resolutions for ourselves.  The reason we do so is to correct things in our lives that may have begun to exert the wrong kinds of influence upon us.  However, we often lament about how quickly our resolutions are broken.  Maybe that is because, once we have entered those resolutions into our minds, we forget to hit the “save” key.  They were resolution made because everyone else was doing so and it was the thing to do at the time.  But they were not really important to us and we failed to make them an important part of each day.

If we really want our days to be different, we have to set that change in our minds and hearts.  We cannot merely say something needs to be different, we have to desire that change and pursue it on a regular basis.  Today has the potential to be the best day of our year as does tomorrow and the day after.  That will only come if we decide that we will look only for the good in each day.  Finding the good we will find our God who is behind that good, within that good.  Finding God?  Yes, that would be the best day of the year.

FAITH ACTION:  Do what you can to keep your mind and heart set on the positive things that happen today rather than on anything negative that might come along.