Today’s Prayer to Passage will be from the book ‘The Greatest Salesman in the World’ by Og Mandino.

Today I pray, “Dear God, When pressed to examine my life and the true blessings You have provided me, I smile in near disbelief. I can hardly attain the ranks of pretense available to me — a sparkling accessory of all the miracles I am accepting in honor of You. The stories I could tell! This, my testimony. This year, I resolve to open up more about the genius bundles of witnessing I should probably be presenting to the world. On with that! Amen.”

Following my prayer, I held the closed book in my hands and opened it to this passage:

“I will live this day as if it is my last. …I will waste not a moment mourning yesterday’s misfortunes, yesterday’s defeats, yesterday’s aches of the heart, for why should I throw good after bad?
I will live this day as if it is my last. This day is all I have and these hours are now my eternity. I greet this sunrise with cries of joy as a prisoner who is reprieved from death. I lift mine arms with thanks for this priceless gift of a new day. So too, I will beat upon my heart with gratitude as I consider all who greeted yesterday’s sunrise who are no longer with the living today. I am indeed a fortunate man and today’s hours are but a bonus, undeserved. Why have I been allowed to live this extra day when others, far better than I, have departed? Is it that they have accomplished their purpose while mine is yet to be achieved? Is this another opportunity for me to become the man I know I can be?”
—OG MANDINO

May we all be reprieved from death! There is nothing so lovely as the excitation of lively living. I think that’s what many of us live for. That slaphappy, winning-mega-lottery-ticket silliness. That love-to-be-entertained curiosity that keeps us moving toward its elusive fascination. We are still here, which is why we are being presented with this…very…word. Therefore, I am committed to completion.