If I were to ask you, “What is the most important day of your life?” you might answer by telling me how you first met your spouse or landed that perfect job. Or maybe you would talk about the day you finally invited the Lord into your heart.

While these would be monumental days, for sure, may I suggest that there is no day more important than this one – none more significant than TODAY!

Every year for the past several, I have been reading through the Book of Psalms. A couple of weeks ago, I returned to Psalm 118, where I read these words again…

This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118:24

This Psalm is familiar to many of us, and it’s always been important to me because it’s the first verse of scripture I can remember hearing.

When I was young, my siblings and I, along with many cousins, would spend the night at our grandparents’ house, where our grandfather, Papa Daddy, would almost always wake us up in the morning by walking through the room where we were sleeping and basically shout this verse – sometimes more than once!

Needless to say, it made an impression. It’s the simple, powerful truth that this day is important because it’s the one the Lord has made for us – the only one we have. It’s a loud call to fully embrace and live in this moment God has given us. Today.

And it makes me wonder how many todays I’ve wasted worrying about tomorrows.

I heard a story recently about a guy who received a phone call from his daughter at school one morning. She had forgotten her lunch and asked him to bring it to school by lunchtime, which was at 12 o’clock.

“No problem. I’m on it!” he said.

The dad arrived at the school at 11:55AM, lunch in hand, and sat in the cafeteria waiting for his daughter. But when she arrived, she was visibly upset, and told him, “I thought, when I called, you were going to bring my lunch. I’ve been worried all morning.”

“When is your lunch period again?” the dad asked. His daughter said, “Twelve o’clock.”

“And what time is it now,” dad asked. “Twelve,” his daughter replied.

“Here’s your lunch,” dad said, handing her the lunch bag.

In that moment, the daughter realized that she had wasted the entire morning worrying needlessly. Her dad came through just as he promised, at just the right time.

I know this is a simple story, but I can sure be just like this girl – wasting today needlessly, not trusting my Father, worrying about what tomorrow might bring.

Jesus famously said, "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

Jesus’ words are an invitation to a life of faith in him – fully present, fully trusting him to care and provide.  

I believe the enemy of our souls would like nothing better than to distract us, to steal our joy along with any impact we might have for his kingdom by keeping our focus firmly fixed in an unknown future and all the ‘what if’s.’  

Jesus only lives in the present. He can only speak to us today. Let’s not waste anymore todays; let’s trust him and respond to his call – his call to forgive, to reconcile, to step into something new, to do something hard, to surrender, to stand up for our faith, to live fully and boldly for him – to rejoice and be glad.

For THIS is the day the Lord has made.