What a rotten day !

"He who wants to love life and see happy days, that he keeps his tongue from evil, and his lips from uttering deceit ; turn away from evil and do good ; that he pursue peace and pursue it ; for the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears are attentive to their supplications." 1 Peter 3. 10-12

"What a rotten day !" said the hiker, who was obliged to give up, on account of a heavy rain, a meticulously prepared and long-awaited excursion.

"What a rotten day !" the employee said to himself at the end of a day : he missed an important appointment because of a big cork and his boss gave him an extra file to deal with because of a colleague's failure.

"What a rotten day !" said the exhausted mother of the family : the elders spent their time arguing, the latter last has not stopped crying because his fever is resistant to drugs, her husband is detained later than expected.

"What a rotten day," the retired woman told herself. She had to walk long to go to her medical appointment because she did not find a parking spot and she learned that her painful treatment had to be prolonged.

Yes, life is not always pink ! Yet Peter, in the verse of the day, invites us to "love him". The Christians to whom he spoke lived through difficult times marked by trials and even persecution. But it is to them, and to us after them, that Peter enjoins not to despair of life, but to pose an act of will : to see the best in each situation, contrary to the pessimistic attitude of the preacher disillusioned : "I have hated life, because the work that is done under the sun has been a burden to me, for all is vanity and pursuit of the wind" (Eccles. 2. 17).

We can decide whether to bear life and consider it a burden or enjoy life because we know that God controls everything. It is not an unrealistic psychological gymnastics or a denial of reality, but a positive approach by faith : a happy day for the believer is not a day when everything goes on wheels but a the day when he experiences the help and blessing of God in the midst of the problems and trials of life.

Source (To pleasing the Lord)