Day by Day | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 23, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 49.

Day by Day.

EVERYTHING difficult in life is met with far greater success when the duties of each day are taken up in their natural order. Anxiety as to the future is not consistent with a just view of God's superintending care. To neglect that which belongs to the day and become absorbed in future service is therefore not wise. When this habit is fixed we are prone either to choose without regard to God's will, or to attempt present burdens in our own strength. There are few persons whose daily lives could not be improved at this point. We have need to learn well the lesson that the best work, however insignificant it may seem, is that which comes to us in God's appointment, and which is performed at the time his providence indicates.

Christ had a perfect ideal in his mind of the work of each day to be done in that particular day. He was fully able to meet that perfect ideal. All trained effort to compass the task of to-morrow was foreign to him. He said: "Take therefore no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." He exemplified all this in his own blessed life. How did he observe this rule? in any hard, Pharisaical manner?

Was to-morrow an utter blank in his thought? We cannot suppose this, for Jesus lived upon earth, a man in all his experiences, interested in human pursuits, and full of his official work to be accomplished at Jerusalem. He communed with Moses and Elias respecting his future. To-morrow was in his mind. But it was there, not to hinder, but rather to stimulate, the activities of the present. In all this he was our perfect example. A proper regard for our future is always consistent with the work of each day, and helpful to it.

Our peril is found in an unlawful anxiety concerning the things of to-morrow. The experienced Christian knows how great this peril is. He feels this to be his weakness, and often mourns that his power for usefulness is in this way taken from him.

The all-perfect One was free from this calamity. We are always subject to it. This danger will be best averted if we will imitate him. But to do this successfully we must dwell in him and be loyal to him.

Spiritual food we must have "day by day" if we would be strong in God. To anticipate some special religious feast in the future, some holy convocation of saints on the morrow, without drawing fresh supplies for this one day through which we are now passing, will be only to reverse the divine order. These promised blessings can only become real when we act our part well in the living present. There is, then, a preparation for future good; the heart has an appetite to receive spiritual nourishment when it has been all along the precious days engaged in right living. It is suicidal to all vital religion to live in the present a life of self-indulgence, to neglect daily prayer or God's word, thinking that in the future we will attend to spiritual matters. However rich the opportunities may hereafter be, we never can become through them what we might have been if we had been constantly faithful through all our previous history.

Anything that robs us of the heavenly manna for this day is to be avoided. God's order is in all things the best. "To-day, if ye will hear his voice," is a most suggestive scripture. He has a blessing for every one to-day in the closet, at the family altar, in the act of ministration unto others, in the manly endeavor to obey the golden rule of the gospel, in the hourly watchfulness against secret pride, in the habitual mindfulness, while engaged in earthly service, of that spiritual realm which is out of sight, but which is more real than anything in this visible universe. Oh, may we follow our divine Lord in all things, especially in this his word: "I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day; the night cometh, when no man can work."—Sel.