One day can change everything about your life. I know that full well. The first time this happened to me, it was a happy day. It was the day that my daughter Rachel caught me by surprise by showing up three weeks early. It had been my day off from work and it was perfect timing because I had just cleaned the house and Brian had mowed the lawn. We went out for our nightly walk at the end of a long day and I started feeling funny. No one would believe me when I was sure I was in labor, but I insisted that he take me to the hospital anyway. That was a day I did not expect even though I knew it was coming.

If you could have seen me then, you too would know to expect that a baby would be entering the world soon. I really was very great with child. We all knew it would happen; we were all surprised that it happened on the day that it happened. That experience floods through my mind and helps me connect to the thought Paul expressed in Acts 17:31,

“Because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

There is a day ahead for me when I will be stunned by the happenings. I won’t have a clue when the day will be, I’ll just know that it is coming. I can have confidence that it will happen. Just as I had confidence that my baby would be born and that no one will live forever, so I know that this day of God’s judgment is coming. It is fixed in His mind alone. He knows the exact day. I know that there is a day that has been fixed.

This knowledge should shape every decision that I make. When I knew that I was expecting my first child, I prepared for her birth. I bought baby clothes and cribs, all the things that I would need well in advance of her birth. Even that night, I was addressing baby announcements before I left for the hospital. I need to have that same kind of determination and focus about the day that the Lord has set. It is a day that will dramatically challenge my life. In fact, it will reveal what my life has been all about.

God does not hide the fact that this day is coming; He only chooses to keep to Himself what day that it will happen. That date is unchangeable and known only to Him. When I lose sight of the reality of this day, I lose sight of the true purpose of my life. Our lives are lived like pregnant women who are assured that a day will come when something better than being pregnant is going to happen in our lives.

The day is fixed. I can be assured of that. I can’t know the day that it will happen, but I can live prepared for the day it does happen. I don’t want to lose sight of that day. It is fixed. It will happen. I want to think about what I do each day in the context of that day. Will this be the day? I don’t know, but I can know what I need to be doing today so that I am ready when that day totally catches me off guard.