His Mercies Are New Every Morning

Unable to sleep, I spent the early morning hours sitting quietly listening to what the Lord had to say to my heart.  Last week was a hard, hard week.  Even still today my heart is aching and tears are flowing easily.  I am so tired... physically, emotionally and spiritually tired.  I just wanted desperately to hear the Lord speak something to my heart that would comfort me.  But the silence was deafening.  I probably spent 2 hours sitting and waiting, yet hearing nothing.

"Where are you, Lord?  I need you.  If you give grace for the moment, I need it in this very moment."

I still heard nothing.  Again I asked...

"Lord, where are you?"

It was then the light of the morning sunrise began to peek through the shades.  I opened up the blind and as I looked out the sun begin to shine over the hill, I heard that still, small voice...

"Here I am.  I was here the whole time.  You just couldn't see me in the dark."
 
I sat back down and cried.  How could I have doubted Him?  Again.  All of a sudden I remembered a devotion Connie sent me a year and a half ago.  Here is where you can read the entire devotion, and I suggest you do.  But this is what speaks so loudly to my heart.  The part that Connie, Mary and I have reminded each other of over and over again.

Jesus spoke of the kingdom as belonging to the likes of little children, and many have speculated the child’s ability to see the world with wonder as one of the reasons for it.  G.K. Chesterton saw the child's ability to revel in the monotonous as another.  The child’s cry for more, reasoned Chesterton, is a quality of the very God who created them.  "It is possible that God says every morning, 'Do it again' to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon.  It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them.  It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.  The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore.”(1) 

For the child on the slide or the toddler with a story, "Do it again!" is far from a cry of boredom or routine, but a cry for more of life itself.  This is likewise the joy of the psalmist, the cry of the prophets, and the call of Christ:  "Consider the lilies, how they grow...if God so clothes the grass of the field...how much more will he clothe you?" (Luke 12:27-28).  Jesus asks the world to consider the kingdom around us like little children, and thus, something more like God—finding a presence in faithful recurrences, grace in repetition, rumors of another world in the ordinary world around us.  Here, even those within the most taxing of life's repetitions—the daily care of an aging parent, the constant burden on the shoulders of those who fight against injustice, the labor of hope in a difficult place—can find solace.  "But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope," said Jeremiah in the midst of deep lament.  "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end;  they are new every morning... 'The Lord is my portion,' says my soul, 'therefore I will hope in him'" (Lamentations 3:22-24, emphasis mine).

Morning by morning, the daily liturgy of new mercies comes with unapologetic repetition to all who will see it, the gift of a God who revels in the creation of yet another daisy, the encore of another sunset, the discovery of even one lost soul.  

*Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

Sunrise after sunrise the Lord is reminding us, ""The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end;  they are new every morning..."

Sunset after sunset I believe the Lord is saying, "Do it again.  Show them I am steadfast in my love." 

I wish you could hear the enthusiasm in Connie's voice and see the joy on her face every single time she reminds us of this.  She sent me this devotion on May 28, 2010.  Still to this day the Lord is using it again to speak to my heart in the dark silence.  I am so grateful the Lord understands I often loose sight of His promises and need to be reminded of them over and over again.


The Lord will do it again.  Tonight the sun will set; tomorrow the sun will rise.  The Lord will use them both to remind us His love is steadfast and His mercies truly are new every morning.

p.s.  The photos were taken by friend Ginger Dunn.  You can see more of her photos on Facebook under Ginger L Dunn Photography.  She also took both of my photos on this blog.  She is amazing.  She gives God all the glory for her talent.