I enjoy celebrating special occasions with friends and family. Just last year I invited friends, family, and church family to celebrate my birthday. After all, it’s no fun celebrating alone! I’d had birthday dinners over the years and a small party or two with family when I was a teenager, but never one with friends, so it was a very special day for me to have everyone present. Today in this post I am celebrating my 100th post on this Perfect Peace blog, all in a 10-month span of time. I hope and pray they have been uplifting, encouraging, or maybe thought-provoking for my readers.
“This day belongs to the LORD!
Let’s celebrate and be glad today.”
Psalms 118:24, CEV
What days do you like to celebrate and why??? For me, days of celebration are happy and joyful occasions that I like to share with others. It might be an accomplishment, a new page of life, a milestone, the completion of a project, or any number of reasons. I’m always glad to celebrate with others, too…weddings, bridal showers, baby showers, graduations, holidays.
Did you know that God celebrates with us, too? He does! The Psalmist David said this day (every day) belongs to the Lord and we should celebrate together (let us) and be glad. God gives us every day of life to enjoy and use for His honor and glory. He wants us to celebrate with Him and be glad for each day He gives us. Too often we (myself included) get up in the morning grumpy that we have to get out of bed and do the same things we do every day. I look extremely forward to Sundays because it is a different day of the week, the Lord’s Day, when I can be with my church family, sing His praises, and bask in the warmth of His love. I could do that every day, but it’s different when you’re celebrating with someone instead of by yourself.
It is definitely nice to have some different things to do and look forward with anticipation to special events, but God tells us to enjoy every day and celebrate it whether it’s the same as yesterday or holds something new. There are people who look forward to a day without pain or a day without frustrations. Others look forward to a visit from a family member or friend after spending countless days alone. How can you celebrate with each of them in the midst of their pain, frustration, or loneliness? Ask God and He will show you.
I did not mention a funeral above in my mention of celebrations, but a funeral can also be an affirming celebration of the life of the one who passed from death to eternal life if they knew the Lord. They are no longer held captive by things that held them back on this earth. They are free to move around, see, hear, and talk in ways they never thought possible. Their sickness or disability is gone. Their sadness is replaced with joy in the presence of their Savior. Their loneliness has given way to renewed and new friendships, people to do life with forever. Of course we who are still here on this earth have mixed feelings of joy for them but grief for us as we live on without them. But the blessed hope of being together for eternity is a huge cause to celebrate. Today plan a celebration even if it’s just that you got through the day safely and productively. It could be as simple as time to prop your feet up and read a book or as elaborate as dressing up and going out to a fancy restaurant. But however and wherever you choose to celebrate, include the Lord, the giver of every good and perfect gift, who never changes which in itself is a cause to celebrate in the face of a changing world.
“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”
James 1:17, NIV