Remember Monday
November 16th, 2008
I once said to someone whose dreams needed to be lifted, “remember Monday!” Monday was the last sign up day for that semester of college. Every time I saw her, I smiled and said, “remember Monday.” Like an old drag race commercial that said “Sundayyyy,” I said, “Mondayyyy.” She responded and entered classes. A little encouragement, a little care from someone, a little stoking of the fires of hope and a new beginning. We must all make a beginning sometimes and afterwards we have we need to continue to feed the fire and keep it burning. Sometimes we let our fires die down and need a little stirring or stoking to get them started again. Sometimes, we have to say it to ourselves, “Remember Monday!”
People around us come to help us live in reality, often they tell us we can’t. Voices rise up inside us of things that say no, can’t, impossible. If we hear that long enough we no longer need to hear it from them, because we begin to tell ourselves. We begin to push our dreams and desires from our concousness. But, we must always remember Monday. We cannot rely on anyones opinions to form our dreams. We cannot rely on anyone to stoke our dreams and hopes, our fires, our passion but ourselves. The world always seems to try to tear the dreams and hopes down — to put out the fires. We can let that happen and fall into complacency, into a dull dream, or we can always and forever “remember Monday.”
Falling into complacency. Being somewhat comfortable just now. It is slow death. Often we avoid doing things because we are concerned that, ” if it fails we will loose everything.” We look so long and hard at the consequence of failure that we do not move at all. We stay in the place we are. We fail to realize that with that attitude over time, “we will loose everything!” As we see our lives draining away day by day, the place we are seeming more and more mundane our fires grow cold; in our hearts we become desperate and look to find a way out but the alternative is worse than what we have.
On Monday, the week is new. Why do people dread the fresh start that comes when Monday breaks again? Monday should always be a new hope and a new beginning. What our response to Monday or anything else in life is, is always up to us. Most people just want to roll over and go back to sleep on Monday morning. Some people so dread Monday that on Monday morning as they face the life they hate they become sick. Monday morning is the peak time for heart attacks. When dreams should be alive and excitement in the air — people faint over things, mostly little things, that seem to have grown so large and so pervasive that all else is blocked from their view. Sometimes things will happen that makes a situation even more hopeless than it was. This is the place of vulnerability, a place where we want to react desperately and do something to get out of the pain or it can be a place to seek the Lord’s help.
These large things — mountains in our lives — impossible to pass — immovable, become small and insignificant when viewed through the eye of faith…that is through God’s eyes. Life is an adventure. We need always to know that if we face it with courage, wonder, faith, and love, that the hero, us, will win. Instead of choking at life’s free throw line, while at bat, as we go for the gold, or whatever analogy works for you, we need to relax, breathe in fire and confidence. We need to stoke our own fires within.
When we have a dream we must keep it alive! Breathe in God’s love. There is a line from an Edgar Guest poem, “Dream great dreams and say, God Can.” You may think that your dreams and God’s are different, but you are wrong. There is never a time that God does not want the very best for you. We serve a God who always has the very best in mind for all of us.
(Jer 29:11-13 NIV) For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. {12} Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. {13} You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
We have a God who only has our best interests at heart and that scripture is to all who will receive it. The Lord knows your nature and your hurts and is waiting for and invites you to come before Him to receive of His mercy and lovingkindness.
The Lord will never leave you nor forsake you. Listen quietly to Him and He will lead you. He is always near if we receive Him, He is becomes part of us. When we join with Him in that way, we come to know real love for the first time. In that love there is healing, and safety, and security. It is a place of refuge from which you can venture into your life knowing that the best is always coming to you. This is a place from which you can send your love into those things that hurt you. The Bible says, “love never fails (1 Cor 13:8).” It also says that, “God is love (1 John 4:8).” And, “be imitators of God as dear children (Eph 5:1 NKJV).” God sends His love to us and we have all caused Him hurt. God sends His love to us even though we have all sinned and fallen short of His glory. His love is eager but will not enter in unless we want to receive it.
When Jesus was born, the angels announced, “peace on earth, good will toward man.” Peace and goodwill from God toward man. Often God is blamed for our troubles, but the scriptures say, “(John 10:10 KJV) The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” The thief is the devil who is the source of pain, destruction, discord and death on the earth. But Jesus came to bring abundant life and peace to mankind. Keep this vision of God in your eyes and in your heart. Always walk toward Him. He is the God to whom nothing is impossible, the God who cannot fail. He is the God whose love for us is so great that He has paid the price Himself for all the sin and problems for all humanity, for all those who will accept His gift. We can fail Him or fail ourselves, but He cannot fail us.
Someone once said that God’s word, the Bible, is a hope chest in which He has put all the eagerness of His love. Remember all the eagerness of His love as you remember Monday. His love never fails. He is love. When we receive Him we become one with Him and become that love ourselves and so, we never fail.