One Day
The memories are so fresh, it’s like it happened yesterday. I was 12 years old and that Sunday seemed to be like so many others. As far back as I can remember, my entire family – parents, two brothers and one sister – would spend every Sunday at my grandfather’s house, on my mother’s side. He was very nice person and had converted the garage of his house into a grocery store, which was paradise for us kids. We could walk in and take whatever we wanted – candy, sodas, potato chips, ice cream… it was a blast.
For my mother it was an opportunity to catch up with her larger family. Innumerable aunts and uncles were only a small part of this large family that migrated from the northeast of Brazil to the big city when my mother was only a child.
When they played “Sueca”, a card game I never understood, my dad was the faithful partner of my grandfather, and they played for hours and hours…and hours. We always arrived home very late at night.
But that Sunday was not like the rest.
At the end of the day, when it was almost the time for us to leave, my parents got into an argument in front of everyone. I don’t remember the what or the why of the argument, but I do remember the embarrassment; the fear that the look on my father’s face instilled in me; how I wished that my mother would just shut her mouth to avoid making things worse; the desire to yell out:“WHY CAN’T YOU TWO JUST GET ALONG?” — these are impossible to forget.
That day, trouble entered our family.
After the fight, we got into the car and went home. For the entire trip, not a word was uttered, and that silence, especially on my father’s part, continued for almost one year – and then the bomb exploded. An affair, another woman, witchcraft, a living hell. I’ll spare you the details.
The point is that everything has a beginning. Nothing has always existed, except for God. The Bible speaks about the “time of trouble” (Psalm 41.1), the “day of adversity” (Proverbs 24.10) – in other words, there’s a particular day in which evil comes into a person’s life. From that day on, things go from bad to worse. It’s like a derailed train – there’s no going back.
Your health was good until the day a symptom appeared. Your marriage was happy until you had a disagreement that couldn’t be resolved. Your business was doing well until your sales went down and never came back up again.
But the interesting thing about the day of trouble is that it comes without invitation. It’s the nature of evil – it attacks when we least expect it.
But the day of salvation, the day of deliverance, the day of change has to be induced. Said another way, it doesn’t happen by accident. I hear a lot of people say “one day my life’s going to change”, “one day I’ll make it” – and yet these people leave this day to chance. They think that on some beautiful day, good fortune will smile on them. But no one’s life changes that way.
Change is the result of a DECISION. The day I make a good decision will be the day that my life begins to change. But it’s me who chooses this day, no one else.
You need to appoint your own Day of Decision.
On this day, trouble will be forced to leave your life and give room for the good that you choose.
“I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live.” (Deuteronomy 30.19)
What’s YOUR decision?
P.S. Was there a day when evil (or good) entered your life? How did it happen? If you managed to make a positive change, what was the key decision you made that provoked it? Please write it in the comments below and share your story — it could help someone.
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