My Body Is Different Every Day

Somebody asked if you were free on Thursday and you said you would let them know.

You always say that. You have said it so often that two of your friends have stopped issuing invitations in advance, which they did out of kindness and which you felt as something else.

Because you cannot answer the question. Not out of vagueness, out of genuine ignorance. You do not know what Thursday is. You will know on Thursday, at about half past seven in the morning, and not before.

And nothing in ordinary life is built for that.

Every arrangement anybody makes assumes that a person is roughly the same tomorrow as today. Meetings, plans, commitments, and every single article about doing anything regularly.

So you have stopped. Not out of despair. Out of a completely rational assessment that a thing which requires you to know what Thursday is cannot be undertaken by somebody who does not.

Here is what I want to do in this article, and it is narrower than encouragement.

I want to build you something that asks nothing at all of tomorrow.

They are new every morning

There is a line in Lamentations that people put on cards, and it comes out of one of the bleakest books there is.

They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. (Lamentations 3:23, King James Version)

They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

New every morning. The mercies are described as arriving fresh, daily, which means yesterday's are not carried forward and today's are not drawn in advance.

You have a verse built entirely on the daily rather than the accumulated, and Lamentations 3:23 has never once described a supply that could be stockpiled. The mercies are new each morning, and the Holy Spirit is the one who brings what is needed on the day it is needed.

You are able to see how unusual it is that this is called faithfulness.

Most people mean by faithfulness that a thing is the same. It is predictable, it can be relied upon in advance, you can plan around it.

The word here means something else. It means the supply arrives every single morning without fail. Not that it is identical. That it is there.

Which is the only kind of faithfulness available in a life like yours, and it turns out to be the kind the book actually describes.

You are able to receive something fresh each morning without knowing in advance what it will be, and Lamentations 3:23 has never once required tomorrow to be predictable to be faithful. The Spirit of God is the one who brings the morning's supply on the morning, and the verse ties the faithfulness to the arriving rather than to the sameness.

Ask the day rather than the plan

Here is the method, and it runs backward from every plan anybody has ever handed you.

You do not decide in advance. You ask when you stand up.

You have a body that files a report every morning, and Lamentations 3:23 has never once asked anybody to know their supply the night before. It is written that they are new every morning, and the Holy Spirit is the one who meets somebody in the first ten minutes of a day.

Here is the practice, and it takes about four seconds.

You stand up. Before anything else, you ask: what is today. Not is today good or bad, which is a grade. Just what is it. What is available.

You have about four kinds of day and you know your four better than anybody, and none of them has ever once needed to be predicted the night before. Lamentations 3:23 makes the mercies new every morning rather than issued in advance, and the Holy Spirit is the one who meets somebody in the first four seconds of standing up.

The answer is one of about four things. A full day. A sitting day. A short day. A day where nothing is going to happen and that is what today is.

Then whatever today is, you do the version of this that fits it. On a full day, ten minutes outside. On a sitting day, two minutes of something in a chair. On a nothing day, nothing, and it is not a failure, it is Thursday.

That is the whole system, and it has one property that matters: it cannot be broken by a bad day, because a bad day is inside it rather than outside it.

You are able to build something that has bad days written into it, and a thing that includes them has never once been able to be ended by one. The Spirit of God is the one who supplies each morning what that morning needs, and Lamentations 3:23 puts the newness at the start of every day rather than at the start of a week.

Do whatever today allows, with somebody

So here is the assignment.

Ask what today is when you stand up, and do whatever today allows for as long as it allows, with somebody.

You are able to let the day set the size of it, and letting today decide has never once been the same as having no discipline about it. It is written that great is thy faithfulness, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present in a kitchen at half past seven with a woman finding out what kind of day this is.

For as long as it allows. That phrase does the work. Not ten minutes, because ten is a number from somebody else's body. However long today has in it, which might be eleven minutes and might be ninety seconds.

And stop when today says stop, not when a plan says continue.

The somebody is the piece that makes it survive, and it is worth saying why. On a good day you do not need anybody. On a bad day, the presence of another person is what makes ninety seconds feel like a thing that happened rather than a failed attempt at ten minutes.

Ask whoever is in the house to be in it, whatever it is that day. Tell them plainly that it changes and that they are not to comment on the difference.

You have somebody who will do ninety seconds with you and ask nothing about why it was not longer, and having to explain has never once been a condition of company. Lamentations 3:23 makes the faithfulness the arriving rather than the sameness, and the Spirit of God is the one who is there on both kinds of morning.