A Fresh Mercy
Live long enough and your heart will accumulate weight. From sins, to griefs, stresses, to disappointments, to loss and all of life’s in-betweens. Our hearts are a well of sorts and daily the fallen world we live in pours deep within us her gallons of brokenness.
Are you tired? Are you sad? Are you confused and exhausted? Are you broken over sin but at a loss of how to move forward? Do you feel grace has run out for you? Have you lost hope that your broken relationships can be mended?
Take heart. Today there is new mercies.
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.—Lamentations 3:22-23
For us or them?
We never want to rip scripture out of its context. Lamentations is a book about the grieving of sin of Israel, God’s chosen people. Remember the story of God saving Israel from Egypt with Moses? And how He led them through the wilderness, brought them to the promised land? How He provided for them and protected them? The whole way they went kicking and screaming. Fast forward a few years and we read in 1st Samuel about how Israel wanted an earthly king, God wasn’t enough. Israel constantly has an internal struggle with loving God or loving other things. Over the course of her years, as a whole, Israel loves other things more.
And then we get to the book of Lamentations. Named in English after the tone of the book, one of lament. What is the author lamenting? History. All that has been. It would be easy to categorize Israel’s history as a whole and certainly the author is lamenting it all, but a whole is made up of parts. Consider Israel’s history of sin: remember when Israel made the golden calf and worshipped it instead of God? A history of brokenness, remember when David, Israel’s King, deeply sinned? A history of strained relationships, think of all the difficult stories of the Bible caused (or that caused) strained relationships.
When we zoom out, we see the lamenting of a people who turned their back on God. When we zoom in, we see faces. When we talk about God dealing with Israel, we must not forget Israel was made up of human beings. Individuals. God is showing us how he deals with individuals just like us.
Fresh Mercies
What does this say to us? Are we so different than they? What is God’s word to the weight that accumulates around the hearts of His people, some because of their own sin, some because of others sin, some because of simply living in a broken world?
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.—Lamentations 3:22-23
Fresh mercies. Do you need to be reminded of that today? That God sees your difficulties, God sees your sins, God sees your pain and is providing daily mercies for your daily difficulties. The context of this refreshing verse isn’t one of sunshine and rainbows. But of darkness and depravity.
An anchor amidst the waves
In the midst of lamenting of the coming judgement and the brokenness Israel’s sin has caused, the author holds onto this anchor. In the preceding verse, he says: “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope.”
What do you call to mind when your heart is faint? Anything? I fear we so often speak nothing over our internal thoughts. Wether they come from us or from satan, I do not know. But I know the author met his dark state of the soul with intentionality. When did he receive hope? When he called something to mind? And what did he call to mind? He reminds himself of the steadfast love of God. The God will not abandon his people even in their sins. He may discipline, he may prune, but he will never give up. So it is with us. God will never give up on you. Turn to him in humility and repentance.
Not only this, but his mercies are daily fresh. They both soothe your accumulated griefs and your fresh ones. His mercy melts your guilt of sins from 10 years ago, and meets your need for grace today.
His anchor amidst the waves, the thing the author holds onto that steadies him, is the love of God. It doesn’t remove his difficult circumstances. It doesn’t fade away the sins or the repercussions of sin. But it provides what he needs.
Hope that God is still at work. The story is not over.
A Word For You
Do you need fresh mercies this morning? Call to mind Lamentations 3:22-23. Meditate on it all day. Write it down on an index card. Think about the words. Picture Jesus dying for your sins, willingly. Picture God saying to you: “I forgive you, let’s move on to better things now.” Preach to your heart that you are not too far gone because God said in His word that his love is steadfast. You don’t get to dictate how God works and operates. He does. Your negative internal thoughts about His love for you do not dictate reality, His word dictates the reality of His love. And it says that his mercies are new and fresh and that his love is steadfast.
Today is a new day and his mercies are new.
Thankful for God’s deep love,
Josh.
