Expecting Sunday

An Easter thought arose in my mind yesterday after receiving a sweet friend's kind note. The note was a warm touch from someone dear to me that knew exactly where I was in life and sought to tell me that he supported me there. I think we search our whole lives for people that will support us and encourage us even at their own expense. Anyway, that's another day. This day is about Easter, blessed Easter.

I woke up Easter morning feeling anxiety. I've had the feeling ever since I got back in town from Mississippi. I went to MS for spring break for Hurricane Katrina relief, but that discussion will come soon. Transitions from long trips or back to reality are always difficult for me. Anxiety comes with the territory. It's more of a time will heal issue than an need to talk it out, but I'm deviating from the real issue at hand. I read life words in a short phrase that this friend wrote. He said that we'll all have our Fridays, but take hope because expect Sunday to come. So much meaning packed into that small phrase. We'll all have our Fridays- those days that are deathly, terrible, blinding, beating and draining. Those days that we can't get up to save our lives and we feel defeated. Those sad days or the day nothing goes right and every good intention turns bad and is taken wrong. Those days. Then there's Saturday- the day that we wait. You are probably all too familiar with those days- the day you get really impatient because you have no clue what God is doing or where He is because He should be acting or at least being vocal about His intentions (or at least this is what you're irritatedly thinking). Those days you run around with no direction and feel like you've hit a dead end and life hangs on that next step if only you knew what it was and it's so frusterating because you honestly would follow God or so you think if He just directed you.

Then there's always a Sunday. Easter Day. The Day Jesus Christ rose from the dead and declared freedom to all the captives. The day sin was overcome and we were fully able to reflect the image of Christ to God as He stood in our very place and cancelled our debt. The day that's glorious and you're pretty sure nothing could possibly go wrong. Even the few minor hiccups of people's doubts or misunderstandings don't bother you because it's a great day. The kind of day that shouts freedom and simplicity. The day that everything is clear and your way is steady and sure. The days that give you a renewed sense of rest in Jesus and satisfaction and contentment. Those days, those great days.

But ya know, in my 22 years of life I've found that it's the Fridays I'm most thankful for. The days that are hard and trying, the ones that I'm not sure I'm gonna make it through. Those are the days that I learn my need for a mighty Savior, one who will never leave me or forsake me. One who walks alongside me on that particular Friday I'm having and says, "Cast your burden on me for I care for you" or tells me that He will never give me any more than I can bear. So I feel privileged on those hard days that God has declared me strong enough to withstand what He has given me and that I am being refined to be more like Him.

Without the Fridays we wouldn't continue to die so that we can live more like Christ. In all my life I hope that I continue to thank God for Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays that this life brings.

Whatever

"Finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me- practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you." (Philippians 4:8-9). Such common words in our Christian vocabularly, yet they hit me today as I read Colossians. My eyes caught a passage marked above in chapter 4 of Philippians as I scanned the first page of Colossians about rejoicing in the Lord always and as I read through the remander of Philippians those 2 simple verses caught my eye. Think about these things. My mind races and I'll have to admit I'm slightly ashamed when I think of what I think about. How often I am thinking about something very different than my facade appears and my actions portray. "Man looks at the outward appearance but the Lord looks at the heart." I wish not. How often do I live up to the outward appearance but not to the heart, the inward thoughts and desires that consume me so often with evil. So how to I combat this? How do I strive with all His energy to follow God? I think about such things. I think about whatever is true, whatever is honorable, commendable, pure, excellent and worthy of praise. I choose to set my mind on things above and not on earthly things. For the things of this world are fading, but the eternal things are forever. What else do I do? Practice what I have learned and seen. The interesting thing to me was that this is Paul speaking, not Jesus. Not the perfect man that descended to earth to take away our sins, no. It's Paul, the guy who transformed from truly terrible to truly magnificient because he let Christ be all. How did he do it? By thinking about such things. By letting Christ be his role model, his person that he looked to for practice for life. Look at the promise- the God of Peace will be with you. What more could we ask for in life, what more could be want? You may not know that's what you want, that's what you need, and you may be thinking that you wish you could honestly say that's all you want. But know this, in 22 1/2 years of life I have come up short in every avenue that I have desired that wasn't God. I have come up short and it has failed me. It has disappointed and left me wanting. The God of Peace will be with you. You can't have peace and still be wanting. You can't have peace and be disappointed. You can't, and you won't. It's a promise.