Highway Chaplain: Just One Of Those Days

We all have had them, those days that just seem to be one frustration after another. The day dawns clear and you wake up to greet the day. Climbing down from the cab of your truck to go inside the truck stop to wash your face grab a cup of coffee and head out for your delivery. Just as you turn to close the door you look to your right and find you have a flat.

“Dang”, you think, “Just what I need today when I ran hard to get here yesterday so I could get this load off early.” Oh well gotta get it fixed and off to the shop you go. Two hours later and 5 phone calls from your dispatcher you are pulling out onto the highway heading to your delivery. Not so fast there cowboy its now 8:15 am and you are in the famous Atlanta rush hour traffic (of course it could be any large city these days) and you “ain’t” going anywhere fast.

Now you are 3 and a half hours behind schedule as you arrive to your destination and find out since you are so late you are now on standby because you missed your appointment. Yeah I know could it get any worse, sure when you do get unloaded, you find out that you get to spend another night in Atlanta which will put you getting home for the weekend on Saturday. Wonderful so now you the all important family event you had been planning on being at for how many weeks? Boy your spouse is going to love you for that.

So ever have many of those days, where it seems everything is going wrong and everybody is getting on your last nerve? Whoa was that a roar of yes I hear out there? Yeah well guess what the Chaplain has those days too, because I am not exempt from life’s trials any more than you are.

However just recently I discovered something in the scriptures that is helping me to tolerate those days when everything goes wrong. I have been learning to look at those days with as much ( I know this is going to sound REALLY wrong) enthusiasm as I do those days when all goes as planned. Want to know the secret?

Well it is found in the book of Psalms in the 118^th chapter and the 24^th verse which says,

“ This is the day the LORD has made; We will rejoice and be glad in it.”(NKJV)

Now I want you to pay particular attention to the 1^st half of this verse especially the VERY first word. “THIS”, right now, present time, this very moment, this day. The Psalmist is saying TODAY is the day the LORD has made. Think about it for a moment just let this sink in for a moment, THIS day, the horrible day where nothing would go right from the start, this day the Lord made! Why in the world would He do this to me?

Imagine for a moment that before you woke up the Lord was already shaping your day for you. We are not talking about tomorrow, not about yesterday, we are talking about TODAY right now God had it planned and created just for you, yes even those days when all goes wrong.

Yet it is through the trials of life that we learn several things if we just see them in another light. When adversity comes it is to teach us to;

Trust the Lord, with all of our heart. He will if we listen for His direction show us the path through adversity

Have patience and through the patience it brings we receive hope ( Romans 5: 3,4)

Face it with joy because as James tells us that the testing of our faith will bring patience.

Remember, that not only is each day created for us uniquely it is designed to build and establish the character of Christ in us. How wonderful that the Lord knows what we need each day to build us up in our faith. Some days we need adversity while on other days we stand on the mountain top rejoicing all this is prepared for us by the Lord even before we begin to wipe the slumber from our eyes.

So we like the Psalmist can not only recognize that “THIS is the day the Lord has made”, we also can “REJOICE (because He designed it uniquely for me) and be GLAD in it.”

So until next time, God Speed and good running.

The Highway Chaplain

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