Sometimes the facts get in the way of a good story. For years, a legend persisted that on July 4, 1776, the day the American colonies declared their independence from England, King George III’s diary entry read: “Nothing important happened today.” Unfortunately, however, (at least for anyone who loves a good story) the legend is false. According to Arnold Hunt, the curator at the British library, King George III never kept a diary. Other investigators tell us that the famous quote actually did come from a diary entry, but it was the diary of King Louis XVI of France from 1789.

Royal diaries aside, there is no denying that sometimes we fail to understand the significance of certain days. The fact is that something might happen during a 24-hour period, something that you initially classify as unimportant, that turns out to be one of the most important events of your life. We hear undertones of the priceless value of each day in those famous words from Moses:

So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. (Psalm 90:4, N.K.J.V.)

I woke up today with a basic plan in mind. That plan was: eat breakfast, check my emails, get caught up on the news headlines, publish this blog post, preach the radio sermon for next week’s broadcast, and put the finishing touches on the sermon I’ll preach this Sunday morning at Roan Mountain Baptist Church. That’s the general plan, at least. But who’s to say that everything will go as planned? Many days it doesn’t. Even if things do go as planned, who’s to say that something uncommonly significant won’t take place as part of it all?

One thing we can say for sure is that the best way to live any day is to live it all-out for Jesus Christ. Even as we formulate our basic plan for each day, we should be careful to filter everything we do through Him and His will. Jesus described this as taking up your cross daily and following Him (Luke 9:23).

You see, Jesus knows how to use us in His service to make each day count the most for eternity. To paraphrase a line I once read, if we don’t give ourselves completely over to Him each day and allow Him to lead us and use us, we’re just playing “trivial pursuit” with life. Frankly, that’s what the vast majority of people in this world are out there doing right now, and I’m saying to you, “Don’t be one of them.”