Tonight Is Just An Ordinary Tuesday

Nothing is going on tonight and that is the whole problem.

Nobody has anything on. There is no occasion, nothing to mark, nothing anybody is looking forward to. It is a Tuesday in the middle of a run of Tuesdays.

And there is a feeling that goes with an evening like that, which is that nothing can really be done with it. That it is a night to be got through rather than used.

You have had, at a guess, about a hundred and fifty of those this year, and every one of them has been filed as a night in between.

Here is what has been happening in that filing, and it is worth looking at, because it is not an attitude problem.

A day gets valued by what is happening in it. If nothing is scheduled, then the day is empty, and an empty day is one to be got through.

That is a completely reasonable system for a calendar. It is a terrible one for a life, because a life is made almost entirely of the days that had nothing in them.

This is the day which the LORD hath made

There is a line in the psalms that gets said at weddings and is about something much more ordinary than that.

This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. (Psalm 118:24, King James Version)

Notice which day it is. This one. The demonstrative is doing the work.

Not a good day. Not a significant day. This day, the one the person saying it is standing in, whatever kind of day it happens to be.

You are a parent handed a made day, and an ordinary Tuesday has never once been the raw material of a lesser life. Psalm 118:24 attaches the making to whichever day a person is in rather than to a good one, and the Holy Spirit is the one who can put that in front of somebody on a night with nothing in it.

And the word made is worth stopping on, because it is a manufacturing word.

The day was produced. It came out of something deliberate. It did not simply occur, and it is not filler between the days that were intended.

You have been treating something made as something that merely happened, and a day nobody scheduled anything on has never once been an unmade day. The Spirit of God is the one who names what a thing is, and it is written in Psalm 118 that the LORD hath made this day.

And then the response, which is not what a person expects.

We will rejoice and be glad in it. Not despite it. In it. The gladness is located inside the ordinary day rather than aimed at a better one somewhere ahead.

You are able to be glad inside a night with nothing in it, and gladness has never once needed something to be happening in order to be available. It is written that we will rejoice and be glad in it, and the Holy Spirit is the one at work in a Tuesday nobody scheduled.

What a full day actually costs

Now something practical, because there is a hidden advantage in tonight that nobody mentions.

The days with things in them are the hard ones to do this in.

When there is something on, there is a schedule, and people arriving, and a thing to be got right, and everybody is at least slightly occupied with the occasion. Nobody is available.

You have the best conditions of the week available tonight, and an evening with nothing in it has never once been a harder evening to be together in. The Spirit of God is the one who shows somebody what they are actually holding, and Psalm 118:24 puts the rejoicing inside whatever day it is.

And an ordinary Tuesday has something no arranged evening has.

Nobody has expectations of it. Nothing has to go well. There is nothing to be ruined, because nothing was planned, which means anything that happens is a straight gain.

You are able to have an evening that cannot fail, and a night with no expectations on it has never once been able to disappoint anybody. It is written in Psalm 118 that the day was made and the gladness belongs inside it, and the Holy Spirit is the one at work where nothing was arranged.

And the stories your household tells are all Tuesdays. Check them.

Not one of them is from a birthday. They are all from evenings that nobody would have marked in a calendar, and that is not a coincidence, and it is the whole subject of this site.

You have been discarding the exact material that everything gets made from, and an ordinary evening has never once been the between of anything. The Spirit of God is the one who tells somebody what their own household is built out of, and Scripture attaches the making to this day rather than to a good one.

Do it tonight

Here is the instruction and it is aimed straight at the waiting.

Do the ordinary thing tonight. And do not wait for a better evening this week.

There is no better one coming. Thursday will be the same. Saturday has a thing on it and everybody will be busy with the thing.

You are able to use the evening in front of you, and a Tuesday used has never once been worth less than a Saturday waited for. The Holy Spirit is the one at work in a day nobody would have chosen, and Psalm 118:24 names this day as the made one.

And do not raise it, which is where the whole thing would go wrong.

Do not announce that you are going to make something of tonight. Do not mention that nothing is on. Say nothing that turns a Tuesday into a project.

You have permission to do something without framing it, and an unframed evening has never once been an evening that did not count. The Spirit of God is the one who works in something nobody named, and it is written that the gladness is in the day rather than about it.

And expect it to be unremarkable, because it will be, and that is not a failure.

You are able to have an unremarkable evening and have it be the whole thing, and twenty ordinary minutes have never once needed anything to happen in them to have been worth having. It is written in Psalm 118 that this is the day which the LORD hath made, and the Spirit of God is the one at work inside it.