Cherish the Day Before It Appears!

Have you ever thought of doing that? It could have a lot to do with the kind of day you'll have, the kind of progress you'll make. It's really the groundwork, the prior spiritual work, needed to carry out successfully that familiar send-off, "Have a good day!"

"Day unto day uttereth speech," ^{Ps. 19:2 ;} said the Psalmist. Our days should speak of God and His goodness because true day is actually the dawning of good for all creation. That includes you and me, even if we feel quite otherwise.

We could start examining the meaning of day by asking ourselves, "Of what do my days speak?" Do the hours speak of integrity? Of joy? Of love? Of purposeful activity? Of reward? Do I hear the angels sing? That is, do I feel Love-linked, close to good, to God? Do I feel the touch of His hand in my day? If not, why not?

I believe all of this is possible for our day. There are lovely hymns that say it clearly, too. One sings of a faith-lighted day:

The day's return need never be joyless. We need not awake to a day that speaks to us before we speak to it! If before we lift our heads from the pillow, the propaganda of the world's kind of day begins to pour out to us a mesmeric message of boredom, sadness, heaviness—of fear, pain, futility, and loneliness—we can refuse to allow this cloud of misery to hide the lovely promise of a God-filled day, the day that can be ours to live and to enjoy.

That's why it's important to cherish, to understand, the day before it appears. We are not helpless in the machinery of days that come and go with nothing much taking place. We can have better days, and they result when we look for the good in each day. The Psalmist prayed, "Cause me to hear thy lovingkindness in the morning; for in thee do I trust: cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up my soul unto thee." ^{Ps. 143:8 ;} How do we go about this kind of spiritual preparation for our day?

Christian Science has taught me a lot about a lot of things, and one is a very helpful and healing way to approach each day. In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy gives the spiritual sense of "day" as "the irradiance of Life; light, the spiritual idea of Truth and Love." And she says further, "The objects of time and sense disappear in the illumination of spiritual understanding, and Mind measures time according to the good that is unfolded." ^{Science and Health, p. 584 ;} This lifts one's sense of day above planetary and calendar influences, and keeps it in the grip of Life, God.

I have seen that Life's day is the day in which I want to live. The light of Life is the true light of that true day. I may have seen many days come and go as recorded on calendars, but how many of these days were the days of Life's own irradiance? How many spoke of the good unfolding from Life itself?

In Christian Science I found that true time is measured by the forever appearing of what divine Life expresses. True day must speak of that alone. If the day speaks of something opposite, we are living the day of our mistaken beliefs. We are living out the space of time called a day, getting just what we and others expect of that passage of time ticked off by a clock. But that's not day!

Cherishing the day before it dawns makes all the difference. A baby is cherished before it appears, and the prenatal cherishing and nurturing is as important to its development as are other environmental conditions. So it is with "day." We can think of our days as gifts of Life. Divine Life is doing all the living and we're part of it!

We can erase our outlining of limitation and discover the charm and grace of true being in every corner of our day. We will have far greater assurance of the evidences of divine Love in our day because we do our "homework" of prayer and place our day in God's hands with spiritual understanding; because we spiritually understand there can be no other day than the one that bears witness to divine creation ever appearing.

Our willingness to place our day in God's hands is not an act of faith alone, and certainly not of resignation or predestination. It is based on our spiritual understanding of God and of His day of incredible good. The unborn day we cherish will appear and fulfill our expectations. This was proved in my experience when a journey of twenty-three days was being planned. The study and planning took several months. As the thought of the journey began to take shape, more and more of the good and beautiful and worthwhile were noted for each day of the trip. The whole project was constantly cherished.

Spiritual guidelines were established from the Bible and two of these headed the plans for each day: "But what went ye out for to see?" ^{Matt. 11:9 ;} and "He hath made every thing beautiful in his time." ^{Eccl. 3:11 ;} Each day these spiritual guides alerted us as travelers to discipline our sight-seeing to true seeing, looking for and finding the lovely graces of God and the very evidences of the Christ, Truth, in every detail of the day. We looked for the beautiful and the good, knowing God's world had to be cherished first within the heart if it were to be seen at all.

The reward of this spiritualized approach to each day, this cherishing, was to find each of those twenty-three days incredibly perfect. There were hundreds of fringe benefits, undreamed-of, but of course already prayed for. But we needn't wait for a special time like a journey, for instance, to cherish our days. We can start right now. It's always today, isn't it? And it's never too late.

God's promises are kept. His glory is here to crown our every moment. Our days can speak of His control and goodness and love. The days we cherish will appear. As Science and Health assures us, "To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, to-day is big with blessings." ^{Science and Health, p. vii .}

It is God that girdeth
me with strength, and
maketh my way perfect.

Psalms 18:32