I’m a planner. I sometimes enjoy thinking through the next
week or month or year more than relishing today. And if I’m honest, I know that
my compulsion to plan is about removing anxiety by removing unknowns. I want to
know that there will be enough food in the refrigerator and enough money in the
bank and enough time for my to-do list.
But there are times when life isn’t plannable. When the unknowns
are so overwhelming that you just get through today with no energy to spare on
tomorrow. I was there for 26 days once, on hospital bedrest in early labor, a human
incubator. I was there when my mother was living out her last few weeks
allotted on earth. I was there in my empty house while the sea container filled
with my household goods stalled in customs. I was there after cancer surgery when my
recovery schedule went all haywire.
You’ve been there too. Maybe waiting for a job offer, or the
right color on a pregnancy test, or an adoption to finalize, or divorce papers
to be served or a diagnosis to be confirmed. It is in these waiting times that
we reduce life to daily increments. Taking one day at a time. Asking for God’s
mercies to be fresh again each morning and thanking Him each night for giving sufficient
strength for the day.
There was a man in the Old Testament named Jehoiachin who was
king of Judah for a short stint. Then he was captured and held in a Babylonian prison
almost 37 years. But in II Kings 25:27, he was released from prison and given a
prominent seat. He changed from his prison garments and ate regularly with the
king of Babylon. Verse 30 says he had ‘a portion for each day, all the days of
his life.’
Jehoiachin was not a godly man so not one of my big role
models. And the king who freed him gets no admiration either. But that verse
grabbed my heart. What a wonderful change of perspective he must have had
coming from a diet of prison rations to a portion at the king’s table every
day. Not just a one-time ‘got out of jail’ celebration, but every day for
the rest of his life.
I was also once in prison, a slave to sin, living on a slim
per diem allowance. And then a King freed me. He sets a place for me at His
table every day. It has portions of grace served to my need for that day. I
don’t have to worry whether I should save some for tomorrow. I know tomorrow
there will be plenty again. This assurance is there when I think I’m in control
and when I know I’m in limbo. So I’m trying to not get caught up in the
planning. But to trust the daily portion He has planned for me. It’s just
there. My daily portion. For the rest of my life.
