Not Quite Finished

“So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”

Matthew 6:34 NLT

“Don’t brag about tomorrow, since you don’t know what the day will bring.”

Proverbs 27:1 NLT

“Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.”

Lamentations 3:23 NLT

“This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.”

Psalms 118:24 NLT

Merle Haggard wrote a song that I listen every night before I get into bed. It is a song that I like so much and it’s truthful and believable. It’s called “One Day at a Time”. There are a lot of lines that are factual and this is why I’m writing about it. The Lord seems to comfort me when I’m listening to Merle. 

“I’m only human, I’m just a man. Help me to believe in what I could be and all that I am”

I am just a man and the Master has overwhelmed my life from the time I accepted Him when I was 10 years old, until these days when I have many disabilities. He is showing me “what I could be” in the last years of my life. He shaped me and formed me all of my years overseas and he knows what I can do for him.

Show me the stairway that I have to climb. Lord, for my sake, teach me to take one day at a time

God showed me multiple stairways that I had to climb in all of my life. The overseas mission that we were a part of for 38 years, planned months ahead of our lives. But my wife and I were reading the Bible and, living in foreign lands, we knew that there were corners, and curves, and steps, that God had planned for us that we didn’t know about. That’s why we took one day at a time.

One day at a time, sweet Jesus, That’s all I’m asking from You. Just give me the strength to do everyday, What I have to do

We were in nine different countries, four different languages, sometimes children, multiple houses, divergent cultures, numerous schools for the kids, moving the way He wanted us to, and kicked out of countries. He gave us the strength to do everyday, what we had to do.  On our second assignment we had tiny little kids. Joshua was needing a hospital so we had to go to Liberia to get him some surgery. He was only 7 months old. God made miracles so we could go, and it turned out the doctor who was there was my doctor when I was young.

Yesterday’s gone, sweet Jesus, And tomorrow may never be mine. So for my sake teach me to take one day at a time

Yesterday’s disappeared and disintegrated. We cannot change anything we’ve done. I hope some of my awful and lousy things while on the field the Master will correct for me. He did that throughout the Bible. “And tomorrow may never be mine” – I didn’t think about this while working for Him, but these days I am thinking about it every day. He is teaching me various things that I can start up and give Him the glory every day. 

Do You remember when You walked among men? Well, Jesus, You know, if You’re looking below, it’s worse now than then

Cheating and stealing, violence and crime. (pushing and shoving, crowding my mind) So for my sake, teach me to take one day at a time

In some places we’ve been, and in America, it’s worse now than then. Crime has amplified – since the time we’ve been in the States there is every month a shooting in an elementary school, gambling, movies that are bad, people who try to scam you on the internet, the government shooting people, etc. When Jesus was on the earth there were things that had gone atrocious or defective. There were only 200-300 million people on the earth then, and there are 8 billion bodies now. So…I ask Him every day to teach me to take one day at a time