Strength for Today

I am a planner.  I've always been a planner, but when I took on the role of yearbook adviser, it was only enhanced and strengthened.  I have to-do lists for the day and the week, and those lists are sometimes cross-referenced.  I am not inflexible, but it is only by having a plan that I can adjust my plans.  Yet, here we are.  Planning during the pandemic requires a pencil with a strong eraser and a shorter view.

I realized a few days ago that I've been saying the same prayer in the car each day on my way to school.  It is, "Lord, give us enough strength for today."  I don't ask to get through to Friday or make the semester work.  I ask for enough energy to make it through what I need to do for that day.    

When the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness for 40 years after their liberation from Egypt, they were not able to plan for their needs either.  I'm pretty sure they were planners because their society was agrarian.  If you think I'm a planner, I've got nothing on farmers.  They had herded sheep and grown food for generations, and then they were in the desert.  God taught them to rely on Him for their daily needs by making it so their clothes would not wear out and by dropping food from Heaven each day.  Knowing they would doubt His provision could continue and that they would want to hoard the manna, He made it spoil at the end of each day with the exception of the night before the Sabbath.  I assume that this is also the source of the request in the Lord's prayer to "give us this day our daily bread."

As I contemplated my prayer and the Israelites, I realized that this is one way God using the pandemic. He wants to give us more faith in Him and less in ourselves.  Teachers, make your plans, but know that the strength you need to carry them out comes from the Lord, and He has given you the energy you need for today.  Trust that He will give it to you tomorrow as well.

(I grew up singing hymns in church, so they are sometimes in my head.  As soon as the words "strength for today" came to my mind, my mind began playing "Great is Thy Faithfulness" on a loop.  Enjoy this lovely performance of it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErwiBz1QA4o)