Did You Have a Good Day?

“. . . draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” — Hebrews 10:22 

Kendra, a five-year-old girl my wife and I kept after school, jumped into the back of the van. She was all smiles. She did not have a care in the world. She was out of school. It was a beautiful spring day, and she was ready to play.

As we started pulling out of the parking lot, I looked at her in the rear view mirror. I asked her, “Did you have a good day?” Immediately the smile was gone. It was replaced by a look of confusion. I thought maybe she didn’t understand me, so I asked again. “Did you have a good day?” This time she answered without hesitation, “I don’t know! I haven’t looked at my folder yet.”

The folder is a form of discipline used by the school our children attend. Each child has a folder. If a child forgets their homework, they get their folder signed. If they do something wrong, they get their folder signed. The first time is a warning. The second signing earns them a 15 minute time-out. The third a 30 minute time-out. The fourth signing earns them a free trip to the principal’s office. It is a vacation they didn’t want to take. Every day they bring the folder home. To Kendra, and I am sure many of the children at the school, a good day is determined by whether or not their folder was signed.

I was amused by Kendra’s response. I mean it was obvious by the pep in her walk and the smile on her face that she was having a wonderful day. Yet, she couldn’t say so. Her day was not determined by what she knew to be true, it was determined by what someone else thought.

It seems silly, but most adults live each day the same way. We may not carry around a literal folder, but we carry around many mental folders. We have one for work, one for home and one for our social events. We have a mental folder for everything we do, and we are always checking them to see how our day is going.

Your boss scowls at you – bad day. Your boss gives you a pat on the back – good day.

Your children are embarrassed by you – bad day. Your children think you are a hero – good day.

Your friends are too busy for you – bad day. Your friends can’t wait to get together with you – good day.

Your spouse doesn’t say a word to you – really bad day. Your spouse wakes you up with a kiss – really good day.

Lest we forget: You give in to the same temptation you have fallen for over and over again – bad day. You overcome the temptation – good day.

In the end, we are just like little Kendra. As our day comes to a close, we look back through all our mental folders and try to determine whether or not we had a good day. The problem is that most of the things we keep folders on are out of our control. We cannot control how our boss, friends or even our spouse act or react from day to day. Have you ever heard the phrase, “an emotional roller-coaster”? We always feel like we are on an emotional roller-coaster. Why? Because we allow our circumstance to decide who we are and how we feel.

God knows that every folder we keep will always end up with way too many signatures in it. Take the area of your life where you have the strongest performance, and you will still fall drastically short of perfection. God knows that if we focus on our own performance, not only will we have a bad day, we will have a bad life, so God came up with a better plan.

He took all of our folders and gave them to His Son. All our signed folders earned Jesus a trip to the cross. When He died, our folders died. They were not wiped clean and then handed back to us to try again. They were gone. And in their place, God gave us His Son’s folder in the form of the indwelling Christ. We carry with us the folder of the Perfect Child. It has our name on it. It is who we are!

The question is: what folder are you trying to look at? The Deceiver loves to dig up the memories of those old folders. He loves to wave them in front of our face and say, “Look how bad you are!” All too often we fall for it. We sulk in the shadows and mumble through our bad days. Then one day we look up and realize that we have been sulking and mumbling our entire lives.

I have written many times about how God sees us. The Bible says we are perfect and holy in His sight. We are righteous, accepted, loved, and forgiven. Yet this doesn’t mean much if you are looking at those old folders and sulking in the shadows, hiding from God and hoping He doesn’t come looking for you. This is the trap we fall into. It is in the shadows that we allow our circumstances to define who we are and how we feel.

God wants us out of the shadows. That is why Hebrews 10:22 encourages us to “draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” God wants us to stand before Him with full assurance of faith. He also wants us to go through each day with the same assurance. What is the assurance? It is not that you can do better. Our assurance is the indwelling Christ. Our assurance is that when God looks at us, He sees the folder of Christ. Are you living under this assurance?

I am what I am because the Great I Am said I am! That’s a great day! There are going to be days filled with bad circumstances. Are you going to allow the bad circumstances to control how you act? Or are you going to allow the indwelling Christ to act through you in those circumstances? Focus on who the Bible says you are. Trust the indwelling Christ to live through you. Go forward with assurance and confidence in Christ. Have a great day!

© 2025 Warren Martin. All rights Reserved.