New beginnings

Lamentations 3:22

“The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness”

I wonder if you've ever experienced a moment when you found yourself wishing that you could stay there forever.  Possibly seeing your children being born; a fantastic experience that you've had on holiday; holding a loved one's hand as they are ill or dying; a time when you thought you could live in that instance forever.

Unfortunately that is not possible for us in our human terms.  Time moves on inexorably.  There's nothing we can do to stop it.  Each of us gets older at the same pace, although I've spoken to a few that would try to debate that fact!  Each day brings its own challenges and opportunities; some we take, so we leave, so we try to deal with - and each day we move on to the next.

In our lives, we allow some days to pass just like the last one, but with a different outfit.  We think that each day is the same as the rest, as we get caught in a rut of our own making.  We can look at our work lives, our family lives, our own particular set of circumstances, and simply think that it's the same as ever.  We can get lost in our own lives, losing focus of where we are, where we're going, and even who we are.  As the rut gets more travelled along, it simply gets deeper, and we wonder how we will ever get out.

I recently had the privilege of leading a funeral for a very close friend, and I used the above passage as my text.  My friend had always had a positive outlook on life, and seemed to never find himself in that rut of "sameness".  He always looked at each day as an opportunity to do something different.  That's not to say that he was an adventurer!  He worked on his farm all his life, and to the outside world it would look like his work was never done.  As soon as he finished on job, another was crying out for attention.  As one season ended, another began immediately.  He always looked at each day as if it was a completely different experience.

That's how we should look at God's love.  We have gotten used to having God's grace in our lives, and we sometimes become jaded into thinking that we've "seen it all before".  That's not what the Bible teaches us - God's grace and mercies are brand new ever single day!  That means that each new day we should experience God's grace in a new way, unlike anything we've experienced before!  It's no wonder that the author exclaimed "great is your faithfulness"!

We need to experience God in a new way - not to fall into a rut of sameness with God.  God wants and offers a new relationship every day - start accepting it with a new enthusiasm each day!

Great is your faithfulness