Fresh Each Morning

My energy company offers a perk to its members each week — log on to their app and you can claim a voucher for a free hot drink at a high street café. And it’s good coffee.

Really good.

The trouble is that numbers are limited. Miss the initial wave of vouchers on a Monday morning and what you’ll see instead is a little message that reads “check back tomorrow…more vouchers released every day”. But no matter what time I seem to log on (and with a two and a half year old who isn’t always keen on sleeping, that can be pretty early!), I’ve never found a voucher available except for a very narrow window on a Monday morning.

But, as I sit writing this whilst sipping on a Caramel Latte (the result of this week’s voucher triumph), I’m struck by how my approach to God can so easily mirror my approach to the weekly coffee.

Without meaning to, I can treat God’s mercy like my Monday morning voucher code.

If I don’t get to Him early, if I don’t settle down for a ten minute…thirty minute…sixty minute (!?) quiet time at the start of the day, then I’ve missed the opportunity for an encounter that’s really good. It’s another day wasted. His mercies might begin afresh each morning, but I’ve been too slow in getting to them, too distracted by other things, too tired or stressed or anxious.

And now it’s too late.

All that’s left is to check back tomorrow.

Maybe, just maybe, I’ll get it right tomorrow.

Yet I still dare to hope
when I remember this:

The faithful love of the Lord never ends!
His mercies never cease.
Great is His faithfulness;
His mercies begin afresh each morning.
I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance;
therefore, I will hope in Him!”
- Lamentations 3:21–24

When that has become the trap I have fallen into, these words from Lamentations are what I need. Remembering the truth will allow me to dare to hope again — shifting my focus off of myself and turning my gaze upwards.

So what does the author of Lamentations mean by God’s “mercies”? They give the answer in the very next line: that every day, they remind themselves that “the Lord is my inheritance”. In other words, the heart of the message that we need to hear every day isn’t about a particular ‘thing’ that God gives us. It’s that God gives us Himself. Our inheritance — what we have received as a result of being united to God by centering our lives on Him — isn’t land or money or possessions. It’s not even primarily concepts like forgiveness, wholeness or salvation. It is simply God Himself.

He is in Himself the very definition of mercy, the one who as part of His essential nature both generously gives blessings that we have not earned and witholds condemnation that we have justly amassed. Mercy is fundamental to God’s identity; it’s something that He is, not something He has which is separate to Himself. The fact that His mercies are fresh each morning is not because that unearned, unexpected grace has run out every day and needs to be topped up. God can never run out of Himself.

Instead, it’s an invitation to encounter.

Encountering His mercy afresh each day is fundamentally about encountering Him each day. It’s about ongoing relationship with the source of all goodness and all life. It’s not that God needs to give fresh mercy each morning, it’s that I need to receive fresh mercy every morning. Graciously, tenderly, He draws close to offer Himself, not just once, but day after day after day.

Like the Israelites collecting manna in the wilderness, my forgetful heart needs to be reminded every day that God is with me, God is for me, and God is drawing me further into the life He has for me and for His people.

Unlike my weekly coffee voucher, God is not limited, exclusive or only available at a certain point. He is my inheritance, offered fresh to me today and everyday. Therefore, I will hope in Him!