“This is the day that the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24).

Sounds easy enough, doesn’t it? But take a look at your schedule. Take a look at your agenda. Take a look at the host of things that simply must be done this day, consider how many of them are part of the regular routine of life, and it becomes more problematic. Rejoice in the paying of the bills? Rejoice in the pick up or drop off line? Rejoice in the folding of the laundry or the making of the lunches? Maybe not.

Combine that with the fact that this might well be the day when everything changes and it becomes even more difficult. This day might be the day of the diagnosis. Or the car accident. Or the conversation. Or the whatever. In as much as you might have a carefully crafted schedule and to-do list, no doubt it will be interrupted today. This day. And those interruptions might do more than just throw your schedule off kilter; they might turn your life upside down.

The statement is simple: This is the day that the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. Despite its simplicity, the rejoicing of the day is contingent upon the weighty assumptions packed into the first section. It’s only by embracing what’s between the lines of part A that we can really get to part B. Here’s what it might look like:

This is the day.

It will do me no good to wish for another day. A different day. The day that someone else is having. This is the day that I’ve been given. This day, full of the mundane and the ordinary, full of the opportunity unexpected. This one, the one that’s beginning right now, is the day.

That the Lord has made.

Regardless of what this day holds, it is the day that the Lord has made. He is not some cosmic clockmaker who set the universe in motion and then stood apart, watching it tick away. He’s still in the business of making days, and He’s made this one for me. Although I know very little of the potential ups or downs or highs or lows that this day holds, it is nevertheless the one made by the Lord. Because it is made by the Lord, I know that along with making it He has also given me the resources I need for it. I have the grace I need. The patience I require. The perseverance necessary. The discipline to do and work. Along with this day He’s made He has also given me His limitless supply which I take hold of by faith.

I will rejoice and be glad in it.

That’s why I can rejoice. It doesn’t mean everything today will make me happy; none of us are naive enough to believe that. Surely things today will make me frustrated or sad, angry or disappointed. But this is the day. The one that the Lord has made. And because I know something of the nature and character of God, I can rejoice in this day, the one He has made for me, and be glad in it, trusting that though it might not feel like it at the time, everything that happens today has been filtered through the loving hand of a loving God.

Rejoicing in the day at hand means embracing the sovereign work of a loving God. Otherwise, I’ll be wishing for another day. Feeling bombarded by seemingly random circumstances. And I’ll be far from rejoicing when my head hits the pillow tonight.