one day at a time

Often people approach knowing and doing God's will this way: They ask, "Lord, what do You want me to do? When do You want me to do it? How shall I do it? Where shall I do it? What will the outcome be?"

Isn't this response most typical of us? We are always asking God for a detailed "road map". We say, "Lord, if You could just tell me where I am heading, then I will be able to set my course and go."

He says, "You don't need to. What you need to do is follow Me one day at a time." We need to come to the place where our response to God will be: "Lord, just tell me what to do one step at a time, and I will do it."

Who is the one who really knows the way for you to fulfill God's purpose for your life? God is! Jesus said, "I am the way and the truth and the life" (John 14:6, NIV).

- He did not say, "I will show you the way."
- He did not say, "I will give you a road map."
- He did not say, "I will tell you which direction to head."
- He said, "I am the way." Jesus knows the way; He is your way.

If you were to do everything that Jesus tells you one day at a time, you always would be right in the centre of where God wants you to be. Can you trust God to guide you that way? You might say, "No, Jesus does not really know God's will for my life." But He does! Jesus is God. You might say, "No, Jesus might mislead me and take me the wrong way." But He won't. You might think that Jesus would rather you wait until He tells you all the details before you start to follow Him. But that is not the pattern we see in His life or in the Scriptures.

God would be more interested in your responding to Him this way: "Yes, if I follow Jesus one day at a time, I will be right in the centre of Your will for my life." When you get to the place where you trust Jesus to guide you one step at a time, you experience a new freedom. If you don't trust Jesus to guide you this way, what happens if you don't know the way you are to go? You worry every time you must make a turn. You often freeze up and cannot make a decision. This is not the way God intends for you to live your life.

I have found in my own life that I can release the way to Him. Then I take care of everything He tells me one day at a time. He gives me plenty to do to fill each day with meaning and purpose. If I do everything He says, I will be in the centre of His will when He wants to use me for a special assignment.

Abram (God later changed his name to Abraham) is a good example of this principle at work in a Bible character. He walked by faith and not by sight. In the following Scripture, read about the call of Abram to do God's will. Watch to see how much detail he was given before he was asked to follow.

"The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. "I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." So Abram left, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Haran. He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there." - Genesis 12:1-5 (NIV)

God said, "Get out of your country." How specific was God? He gave Abram this much detail: "to the land I will show you". That is all God asked Abram to do. God promised to do the rest. Would you be willing to follow God's directions for your life with that little detail?

- Henry T. Blackaby and Claude V. King, Experiencing God

"By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God." - Hebrews 11:8-10 (NIV)

"Thomas said to him, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?" Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."" - John 14:5-6 (NIV)

the disciples - like Abraham - did not know where they were going, but they knew the way!

*****

"Give us today our daily bread." - Matthew 6:11 (NIV)

"Give us each day our daily bread." - Luke 11:3 (NIV)

The Greek is tricky, but Matthew's [version] seems to mean 'give us today our bread for tomorrow'; while Luke understands it as 'give us each day our daily bread'. They both probably reflect different aspects of what Jesus intended. Matthew, in line with Jesus' whole agenda, means 'give us, here and now, the bread of life which is promised for the great Tomorrow'. Give us, in other words, the blessings of the coming Kingdom - right now. Matthew, writing his gospel, saw this prayer partially answered in the feedings of the five thousand and the four thousand; more fully in the Last Supper; and, most fully of all, in Jesus' death and resurrection.

But Luke's version is not to be sneezed at as merely one-dimensional, just praying for boring old bread. The whole point of the Kingdom, as we saw in the previous chapter [Thy Kingdom Come], is that it isn't about shifting our wants and desires on to a non-physical level, moving away from the earthly to the supposedly 'spiritual'. It is about God's dimension coming to birth within ours, which is after all what Advent and Christmas are anticipating and celebrating. The Kingdom is to come on earth as it is in heaven. Daily needs and desires point beyond themselves, to God's promise of the kingdom in which death and sorrow will be no more. But that means, too, that the promise of the Kingdom includes those needs, and doesn't look down on them sneeringly as somehow second-rate.

- N.T. Wright, The Lord and His Prayer

"Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land that the LORD promised on oath to your forefathers. Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD." - Deuteronomy 8:1-3 (NIV)

All the way my Saviour leads me
What have I to ask beside
Can I doubt His tender mercy
Who through life has been my guide

Heavenly peace, divinest comfort
Here by faith in Him to dwell
For I know whate'er befall me
Jesus doeth all things well
For I know whate'er befall me
Jesus doeth all things well

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." - Romans 8:28 (NIV)