March 27

One day at a time

“The day is thine” (Psa. 74:16).

One secret of a sweet and happy Christian life is learning to live by the day. It is the long stretches that tire us. We think of life as a whole, running on for us. We cannot carry this load until we are threescore and ten. We cannot fight this battle continually for half a century. But really there are no long stretches. Life does not come to us all at one time; it comes only a day at a time. Even tomorrow is not ours till it becomes today, and we have nothing whatever to do with it but pass down to it as a fair and good inheritance today’s work well done and today’s life well lived.It is a blessed secret, this of living by the day. Anyone can carry his burden, however heavy, till nightfall. Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day. Anyone can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, and purely till the sun goes down.


And this is all that life means to us—just one little day. “Do today’s duty; fight today’s temptation, and do not weaken and distract yourself by looking forward to things you cannot see and could not understand if you saw them.” God gives us nights to shut down the curtain of darkness on our little days. We cannot see beyond. Short horizons make life easier and give us one of the blessed secrets of brave, true and holy living.
I saw that I could no more believe for the future than I could breathe for the future, and perceived that I must be contented to live by the moment and rely upon God to sustain me in spiritual existence just as confidently as for sustainment in natural existence.
—Phoebe Palmer.

“The just shall live by faith” (Heb. 10:38).

One day at a time, with its failures and fears,
With its hurts and mistakes, with its weakness and tears,
With its portion of pain and its burden of care;
One day at a time we must meet and must bear.

One day at a time, and the day is His day;
He hath numbered its hours, though they haste or delay.
His grace is sufficient . . . we walk not alone!
As the day, so the strength that He giveth His own.
—Annie Johnson Flint.

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