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Program D-7605

We all have days when everything seems to go wrong, but like Alexander, sometimes we cause our own problems. Here’s another excerpt:

“When we picked up my dad at his office he said I couldn’t play with his copying machine, but I forgot . . . He also said don’t fool around with his phone, but I think I called Australia. My dad said please don’t pick him up anymore.”

Alexander was a disaster at his father’s office mostly due to disobedience. That always gets little boys in trouble, and it will get us in trouble, too, when we disobey our heavenly Father. If there’s an area of disobedience in your life, where you know God has spoken to you but you haven’t obeyed, you’re likely discovering that a lot of days go wrong.

At the end of this terrible day, Alexander said:

“When I went to bed Nick took back the pillow he said I could keep and the Mickey Mouse night light burned out and I bit my tongue. The cat wants to sleep with Anthony, not with me. It has been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. My mom says some days are like that.”

For sure, nothing went right for Alexander that day, but as he went to bed, he began to regain his perspective. After all, his mother warned him there were days like that, everybody has them, and you can’t run away from them.

Perspective—that’s what we need on terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days. We lose our perspective and the little things start to seem so big. Stop in the midst of those difficult days and ask yourself a few key questions:

1. Did the world stop revolving because of this?
2. What difference will this make in 24 hours?
3. Does God still love me? Am I still his child?

You’ll find a little smile start to creep into the corners of your mouth, as you realize that the things which were making your day so bad really aren’t that bad after all. Someone has said that life is 10% what happens to you, and 90% how you respond. I’m convinced that one of our greatest avenues of witnessing, especially on our jobs, is to demonstrate the difference Jesus makes by the way we handle the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days.