“This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalms 118:24) How long have we been singing this chorus, a direct composition from Scripture? Leslie Norman Garrett (1943-2017) put this Scripture to song and introduced it to the world in 1967. So, like me, it is 57 years old!
And, yet our VBS kids sang it like it was a newly produced song.
I woke up this morning (7/23) with a video memory playing in my head. This was the theme song for VBS this year and the kids wanted to not just sing it; they wanted to compete with it. Boys vs. girls. Adults vs. kids. Fifth and sixth graders against everyone. Pre-K, 1st and 2nd vs 3rd-6th. And it was LOUD! I can see one kindergarten boy lunging over the pew in front of him, muscles straining in his neck, trying to be the loudest. His enthusiasm was so much fun to watch. In fact, that was the image that woke me up this morning!
Another girl in the 5th/6th grade group had all the confidence in the world that their group (the smallest, by the way) could take on everyone else. You have to understand something – 5th/6th graders, especially the boys, have almost reached the level where VBS is too immature for their blossoming maturity. Since half of this group was boys, this young lady’s confidence was a gigantic leap of faith – a faith which God rewarded as their volume edged out the volume of the rest.
I believe Mr. Garrett would have been pleased. More importantly, I believe the Lord was pleased.
When us mature adults sing it in church, we tend to lack the child-like excitement. Yeah, yeah. We know the song. We’ve sung it before. Don’t need to bother printing the lyrics. Let’s get it over with and move on to the next one.
And when do we sing it? On a Sunday. We use the song as a call to worship, rejoicing that the Lord’s Day was made by the Lord. Wait a minute! What days has the Lord
made? Did He only make Sunday? Or did He also make Monday through Saturday? And if He made all those days, shouldn’t every day begin with a triumphant declaration that THIS is the day which the Lord hath made?
This is Monday. Things have really changed over the last few years. In 2018, Fast Company reported, “You may be working for the weekend, but when it comes to actually getting work done, Monday is the most productive day, according to a study by Redbooth. The data collaboration software provider found that the highest percentage of tasks–20.4%–are completed on Monday, compared to Friday, when only 16.7% of work tasks are accomplished.”1
As of March 2023, Forbes shows how things have completely shifted. “The newest trend at work is about easing into the week. Some workers—especially those in GenZ—say they are purposefully booking fewer meetings and are doing just enough to get by on the first day of the work week. Bare Minimum Monday isn’t about slacking, they say, but about prioritizing mental health. After all, according to a survey by LinkedIn, 75 percent of working adults claim they experience the “Sunday Scaries”—a feeling of anxiety or dread about the upcoming week. And a study by Accountemps found that Monday is the least productive day of the week for office workers, with employees spending an average of almost four hours on non-work-related activities.”2
While there’s an awful lot wrong in this mentality, I wonder how many of us as Christians trudge off to work, grumbling that the weekend is over, dreading that a new work week has begun? Have we forgotten that the Lord made Mondays? What are we supposed to do about it? We are to rejoice and be glad in it.
As you start this work week, try to tap into the excitement and energy of our VBS kids. Purposefully put the words of Psalms 71:8 into practice, “Let my mouth be filled with thy praise and with thy honour all the day.”
1https://www.fastcompany.com/40528553/why-monday-is-your-most-productive-day-of-the-week
2https://www.forbes.com/sites/adriangostick/2023/03/21/what-can-managers-do-about-bare-minimum-monday/
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