Writing out this title immediately brings a timeless song to my mind… “One day at a time, Sweet Jesus, that’s all I’m asking from you…” It is one song I try to remember and to live by. It gives me valuable perspective whenever I’m feeling overwhelmed. There’s so much going on in our lives and in the world around us today, and sometimes it can be good to have a bird’s eye view when trying to make sense of things, to plan, to solve problems. But, there are also times when it makes sense to think of life like a puzzle. Even though you know what the big picture looks like, you are not trying to fix all the pieces at the same time, rather you focus on fixing one piece at a time.

As Christians, sometimes we may find it easier to trust God and worry less for what we term the bigger things, but struggle to trust Him for what we think of as smaller things. But sometimes, it is those “small” things, or the combination of many “small” things that threaten to overwhelm us the most. Could this be because, with bigger issues, we have resigned ourselves to the fact that we have no control over them whatsoever, while with the small things, we think we are, or should be in control? Then we start adding them up, or going down multiple rabbit holes…wondering how things may pan out, how we will cope, and we start to feel a familiar anxiety well up. One worry lands on another, and before we know it, we have a stack of worries so high, we can’t see the top anymore.

A line in The Lord’s Prayer says “Give us this day our daily bread.” (Matthew 6:11). Not weekly or monthly or yearly bread, but daily bread. Why? Why shouldn’t we just pray for provision for the whole year… after all, wouldn’t we feel more secure and less anxious if we had enough provision for the year, or at least a month? Similarly, when God provided manna in the wilderness for the Israelites (Exodus 16), they were specifically told to only gather as much as they needed for one day, and not keep any of it for the next day (with the exception of the day before the Sabbath). When people disobeyed and still went ahead to preserve some for the next day, it became rotten, unsuitable for consumption, useless. Again, why the focus on daily provision? Matthew 6:34 (NLT) says “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today”. A bit like God saying “One day at a time”?

Imagine a task that you do every day, like preparing meals. Assuming you prepare three meals a day, planning and carrying out this task daily seems straightforward. Now, instead of planning it daily, imagine trying to plan for, and make all the meals for a year at the same time, so 1095 meals (365*3). With the sheer scope and size, the feeling of being overwhelmed starts setting in…panic gradually building in the pit of your stomach, heaviness in your chest… It all begins to feel a bit too much. “How am I going to do it all at once?!”, “What if I can’t do it all?” you may cry.

Maybe the answer is, you shouldn’t, because you don’t have to. Trying to focus on all that we have to do at once is like taking multiple days at a time, making all the meals for the year in one day, fixing multiple pieces of the puzzle at the same time. Your mind runs in different directions like a bag of marbles emptied onto a smooth floor. Does it actually help? Can we do it differently?

During this lockdown, thinking of how to cope for weeks or months without a definite end date in mind can feel like being stuck on a small boat in the middle of stormy seas, with no land in sight for miles. It could be anything from not wanting to feel so alone anymore, to desperately wanting some alone time. Maybe wondering how we would teach and entertain kids for weeks, while trying to juggle work or other commitments is beginning to feel just a bit too much. There are days when you may feel like you have nailed the lockdown, and days you feel the lockdown has nailed you; days when you feel like doing multiple fist pumps in excitement, and days when you are so lethargic, you can barely curl your fingers, let alone make a fist; days when you will do amazing work and meet all your work deadlines with time to spare; and days when you can only half-tick one item off your to-do list, a list that spans two A4 pages, written in size 8 font; days when your kids will behave so beautifully, you can picture yourself winning the Parent of the Year Award, and days when the bickering, whining and yelling is relentless, and you think even the Association of Mediocre Parents won’t think you meet the standards for membership.

My little tips: Celebrate the small wins and good days, ride through the bad days. Both will pass, both will come again. Treat yourself to a little something at the end of either type of day. You’ve done today, you’ll do tomorrow tomorrow. Sometimes all we need to focus on is putting one foot in front of another, rather than dwelling on the thousand steps needed to get to the finish line.

Just do today… pick up only today’s manna, focus on fixing only today’s piece of the puzzle, make today’s step and pause… the time will go by and this too shall pass. By God’s grace, you will survive and raise your eyebrows in amused disbelief at how you survived it, maybe even slightly enjoyed it, and certainly learnt from it. But for now, remember, one day at a time.

(PS: As for me, I pray that I will remember all what I just wrote when I really need to!)