In my book, “If I Should Die Before I Live,” I suggest that there are seven significant days that all of us must navigate in order to ‘sort out’ what matters most in our lives. Those days are not like Monday or Tuesday or Thank God it’s Friday. Instead, they are more like epochs of time that we would all do well to mark and examine and notice. Those days are: Someday, for dreaming: Any Day (now), for waiting: Every Day, for living; Yesterday, for remembering; Today, for now; Tomorrow, for sure?; and A Day of Rest, forever. In the next few weeks, I’ll upack some of those days, and ideas.

The first of those days is … Someday.

It is because God is a good God, I think, that He allowed a day like Someday to be included in our lives.  Someday prompts us to envision things we might otherwise never be able to imagine. The things we dream about, the things we long for, and hope for and plan?  They aren’t here yet.  But we trust they will be … Someday.

One of the things I’ve noticed about Someday is how much there is to “do” there.  Someday is the day we’ll retire, of course.  But it’s also the day we’ll build our dream house, or finally get some grandkids.  Someday, we may write a book, or take that trip we’ve always wanted to take.  We’ve even heard some people say that Someday, our troubles will seem like a bump in the road.

Christian people believe that Someday we’ll get to go to heaven.  But, that hope also carries with it a certain reality that is equally true of Someday.  In addition to a faith in Christ, in order to go to heaven, we have to die.  And most of us hope to postpone that eventuality for as long as possible.  I mean, everybody knows they’re going to die Someday. But I don’t know anyone who wants to die right now.

Someday represents opportunity; a chance to dream about what could be, a window of hope.  Hope is such an important word in sorting out what matters most. Paul told the Romans that, “… hope does not disappoint us.” (Rom. 5:5)  But as is often the case, if I really want to sort out what matters most in my life, I would do well to keep a close eye on living for the hope and promise of Someday. Someday is not above making promises it will not keep. Someday is not an ‘either or’ day; it’s a ‘both and’ day.

In some ways, hoping to live a fulfilled life Someday is like running after a bus we can’t quite catch that’s on its way to a place we’d love to visit. No matter how fast we run, Someday’s dream continue to stay ahead of us. Expectation and disappointment love to walk hand-in-hand throughout life, twin images reversed in the mirror of life’s reflection. We long for rest from the journey.  Won’t life be better, Someday?  Won’t the picture be clearer, Someday?  Everyone who’s lived much of life at all knows that the answer to those questions is, “Not necessarily.” (Perhaps, but not necessarily.)

Some of the most haunting questions that can ever cross a human’s mind, I think, are questions about the Somedays we imagined that never came to be, and the Somedays that showed up in our lives that we had no idea were on God’s calendar for us.