New Every Morning

Unless you're a natural optimist and experienced achiever, the prospect of New Year's resolutions--or of "making a change" at any time of year--can start to feel like a cruel joke after age 35. "What's the use of trying again; I always fail" is a cry-of-the-heart for many who once had big dreams for building the perfect life but are now looking at their current lives in despair, thinking that if it were meant to be they'd surely have it right by now. While a toddler learning to walk will "try, try again" after a hundred or a thousand tumbles, adults are cursed with the knowledge that not everything is possible--and most of us are all too quick to turn that knowledge into the syllogism, "If something is impossible, I will fail when I try to do it. I failed when I tried to do this. Therefore, this is impossible." Instead of putting past mistakes behind us, we let them stand in front, blocking our view of future possibilities.

They are likely also blocking our view of the God of all possibility. It's not for nothing that the Bible tells us to "become like little children" and that God's eternal faithfulness is marked by mercies that are "new every morning." Probably the reason so many of us hate getting out of bed in the morning is that we have lost the ability to see the new day as truly new. We're sure that the day will only bring more of the same old miserable drudgery--and that belief quickly turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy. What little faith we have, refusing to look for new and better possibilities because we have no hope of finding any and see no point in putting ourselves to that kind of work.

Before you go to bed tonight, why not get out the concordance and look up all the times the Bible uses the word "new"? Pick four or five verses that speak of new life in God, meditate on them thoroughly, and pray that they will be on your mind when you awaken.

Then see if getting up tomorrow isn't a little easier. 

Lord, give me, just for today,

The strength to resist temptation,

Pure joy in my vocation,

A heart filled with satisfaction—

Be with me each step of the way:

Give me strength not to dread circumstances,

Nor to dwell on my own plans or actions,

But to take every moment that happens

As a gift from Your hand, I pray.

Moment by Moment

A lot of us wish that, when Paul said "in all things God works for the good of those who love him" (Rom. 8:28), he had included a schedule for that program! Some of us wait a lifetime to see things work out for our good; others fail to recognize the good until long after it arrives. Impatient souls that we are, we just want the pain and frustration to stop.

We should remember that "in all things" also means "constantly." God doesn't leave us to struggle on our own for years until the time comes for Him to do something; He is active in every moment of our lives, guiding our circumstances toward the end He sees from the beginning. When He seems silent, He is busy watching and listening and planning, protecting and shaping us in ways we may never understand this side of eternity.

Any psychologist will confirm that much of human frustration is due to an unwillingness to live life one moment at a time, bit by bit. Why should we be surprised that the all-wise God tends toward the slow-and-steady route? 

Moment by moment our Father is working,

Bringing new mercies the dawn of each day,

God our Provider, our perfect Sustainer—

Perfect His wisdom and flawless His way.

Oh, our beloved Lord! Holy forever,

Moment by moment He shapes and He guides,

Gives us all things for our joy and our pleasure,

All that we need and far more yet besides!

Moment by moment our Father is working,

Weaving our lives in a plan yet unseen;

God our great Master and perfect Protector,

Lord of all things that will be and have been.

Oh, our beloved Lord! Holy forever,

Moment by moment He shapes and He guides,

Working all things to our good and our blessing,

Giving redemption and more yet besides!

Moment by moment our Father is working,

Drawing all things to the ultimate End;

God our great King and eternal Sustainer,

Perfect Redeemer and Heavenly Friend!

Oh, our beloved Lord! Holy forever,

Moment by moment He shapes and He guides,
Making for us a great World that's eternal,
And endless Life where all goodness abides!

He Came for Us

"Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death--even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Phil. 2:5-11).

While Paul cites Christ as an example of humility for us to follow, the above verses are also worth contemplating in connection with what Christ has done for us. In fact, it pays to read the Bible as a whole with the mindset that appreciating God's work is even more important than learning what work He has for us. If you're anything like me, you have days when trying to live the Christian life feels like an exercise in misery. It's not that we'd rather be living in sin; it's just that the battle seems endless to the point of utter futility. Psychologists tell us that when human beings feel trapped in "treadmill" work--same monotonous duties day after day and no real sense of purpose or progress--they will resort to anything, even suicide, to escape. For those of us with perfectionist tendencies, the Christian walk often feels like that treadmill: however much progress we make, it's rarely fast, obvious, or anywhere close to the ideal; and we find ourselves constantly looking at the remaining distance in exhausted despair, feeling we haven't a chance anyway. Perfectionists are so addicted to "finishing" and "completeness" that we find it almost impossible to rest short of the goal, or to understand how Paul could say "Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect... straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal" one minute and "I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances" the next. (Phil. 3:12-14; 4:11.)

The enslaving conviction that it's really up to us--the very thing Jesus endured humiliation and crucifixion to free us from--is an idea that dies so hard as to make literal crucifixion look like the quick chop of a guillotine. And avoiding the temptation by abstaining from work is rarely an option.

While actually breaking the temptation's power is the Holy Spirit's work, we can cooperate with Him by remembering that spiritual growth is slow-but-steady progress. And that God is patient and loving; having the end in mind, He doesn't expect us to get it right every time starting now.

And that Christ came to do the hardest work for our sakes--and will come again to finally free us from the burden of the curse.

He came for us:

Came from the matchless palaces of Heaven

To Earth's cold night, into a shabby stall;

The Son of God, the Hope of sins forgiven,

The Holy Lamb, the Precious Life of All:

He came for us.

He came for us:

Down from His timeless throne where angels worship

To human scorn, to die a cruel death,

To bear our pain, to dare a life of hardship,

To buy our freedom with His final breath:

He came for us.

He'll come for us:

Someday when this world's strife and toils are over,

When days of Earth have run their final course,

Our God, our Lord and ever-holy Savior

Will take us home to our eternal Source:

He'll come for us.

Follow Me

Among the first recorded words of Jesus are, "Follow Me." Follow Him, and He will make you a fisher of human souls. Follow Him, and He will show you true peace. Follow Him, and He will give you the riches of the Heavenly Kingdom.

"Follow," as used here, encompasses virtually every English meaning of the word: follow the path and don't wander off; stay behind the Leader and don't run ahead or lag far back; follow instructions and don't try to invent your own way. The original Greek also carries the sense of "accompany" or "assist." When we follow Jesus, we are more than His subjects; we are His companions, right-hand people, and friends. 

Many of us want to follow Him but wonder why the path never seems clear. Often it's because we have our stubborn minds made up to follow only at our own speed and on our own terms. While relatively few of us flatly refuse to obey clear instructions, many of us are all too willing to listen with half an ear if we suspect God may tell us anything we don't want to know. Or, conversely, we nag Him to provide instructions in detailed long-term format so we aren't distracted from the important work by the nuisance of keeping in constant touch with Him. We don't really want Jesus to be our Leader; we want Him to be our daily planner who organizes our own preferred duties, our front guard who goes before us while we choose path and pace.   

If, as a child, you ever lost Mom in a public place, you have some idea of the results that attitude can serve up.

Of course, unlike that frantic mother, Jesus knows exactly where we are even when we're lost. He simply waits for us to call to Him, in sincerity and repentance, to show us the way back to the path. Often, we can't see His leading clearly because we don't yet feel lost enough to know the desperate earnestness of seeking Him wholeheartedly.

But as God told the Israelite exiles (in Jer. 29:13) who became lost when they stopped following Him: "You will seek me and find me [and My plan for you] when you seek me with all your heart."

He Who called His first disciples
Where the lake in sunlight basked,
Still does call us where we labor:
"Follow Me, and find your task."

He Who called the weak and weary
To a "load" that meant release,
Still is calling us to trust Him:
"Follow Me, and walk in peace."

He Who called the ones reluctant
To abandon earthly care,
Calls us still to full surrender:
"Follow Me to Heaven's share."

Lord, You led the way through suffering,
On through death, to life again:
May we find the faith to answer,
"We will follow to the end."

Clutter's Children

"The sleep of a laborer is sweet, whether he eats little or much, but the abundance of a rich man permits him no sleep" (Ecc. 5:12).

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal" (Mt. 6:19).

"Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.... [A] certain rich man... thought to himself... 'You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.' But God said to him, ‘You fool!'" (Lk. 12:16-17, 19-20).

Everyone knows about those who are rich, famous--and totally miserable. Everyone pays lip service to the idea that money can't buy happiness. And nearly everyone is secretly confident of being the exception to the rule.

But it's not only money and possessions that weigh us down with the stress of longing for more, with worry about what we might not get, with hostility toward others who might have designs on what's "ours." Perhaps even more people clutter their time with overload, fueled by longing for a sense of importance and success, and by fear of missing out. Shortage of adequate vacation time and bitter resentment of interruptions have driven many to hospitals or worse.

Jesus said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.... For my yoke is easy and my burden is light" (Mt. 11:28-30). An irresistible offer--until we realize that our own self-imposed burdens have to be removed to make room for His. Give up our rights to control our own money? Preposterous! Trade work time for quiet time? The road to poverty! Yield up our carefully planned schedules? Why, that's unnatural!

It is unnatural to give up what we hold. As with the child who traps his hand in the candy jar by grabbing too big a fistful, instinct tells us to struggle and scream, to smash what imprisons us and "our" possessions, to find any alternative to letting go of a coveted thing that we finally have in our grasp. This instinct is the manifestation of what the Bible calls our "flesh"--that insidious, all-pervasive, "me first" aspect of human nature that infected our universal gene pool at the Fall.

God is waiting to restore our spiritual health. But don't blame the Doctor if you insist on writing your own alternative prescription. 

Clutter is the father of Anger:

With each moment a task assigned,

You will hate every interruption

For invading your precious time.

Clutter is the mother of Anguish:

With “to do” as an endless snare,

You will fret at each thing that stalls you

Till you sink into black despair.

Clutter is begetter of Illness:

When all life is a pile of “more,”

Endless effort dragging the burden

Strains your heart and health to the core.

Clutter is the bearer of Misery,

And of Pain and the Way of Death:

Yet it draws us all to its clutches

Almost from the first earthly breath.

Jesus is the Bearer of Burdens,

The Begetter of Hope and Peace:

Let Him cleanse your life of all clutter
And wash you in His sweet release!

Change Will Always Be a Battle

"Must I be carried to the skies / On flowery beds of ease?" wrote Isaac Watts in the eighteenth century. "Are there no foes for me to face? / Must I not stem the flood?" (Hymn, "Am I a Soldier of the Cross?")

Few of us, much as we may wish to grow as Christians, get particularly excited at the prospects in these lines--especially the implication of constant battle. And if outside wars are bad enough, the one in each human heart--the struggle to travel from where we know we are to where we wish we were--is so unrelenting and painful that it's not surprising many people surrender to semi-comfortable mediocrity. At least it's easy to live with.

Easy, but not fulfilling. God has bigger plans for each of us--plans too important to leave us to fight the battle alone. Praise Him that we have more than conscience and our own will power as "inside allies"--we have the Holy Spirit Who strengthens and comforts and guides us in the Truth. Most of us make the battle harder than it has to be, because we approach it with the wrong attitude. Spiritual growth is not an appendectomy where we can doze off and let someone else take care of everything, nor is it an exercise prescription where someone hands us detailed instructions and then leaves us to carry them out alone. It's physical therapy that only works if we keep our own muscles operating even as someone else provides constant instruction and support, a program where progress and results are re-evaluated and adjusted on a daily basis.

A hard fight? Yes. One we can win--in God's strength and not ours? You bet.

Change will always be a battle,
And the hardest change of all
Is that wrought in one's own spirit:
So it has been since the Fall.

Change will always be a battle;
Though resolve be firm and strong,
Still new ground is gained by inches,
And the struggle will be long.

Change will always be a battle
For mere mortals, weak and frail:
And against sin's lure so cunning,
Human strength can not prevail.

Change will always be a battle:
But those souls who walk in Christ
Find we have a great Commander,
And His strength will yet suffice.

Change will always be a battle,
But fear not: God's holy Son
Is the One Who fights it for us:
Through Him we shall overcome.

Blessed Be the Name of the Lord

The popular praise song "Blessed Be Your Name" was inspired partly by the 9/11 disaster and partly by Job 1:21b: "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord” (New King James Version). Job spoke those words from what must have been a very similar emotional state to that of those reeling from 9/11; he, like the world of 2001, was swallowed in the shock and grief of nearly inconceivable tragedy.

The fall of the World Trade Center may be more than a decade past, but the world has found plenty of other disasters to serve up in the meantime, most recently on July 20 when a man gunned down over a dozen people at a Colorado theater. But tragedy needn't make the front pages to hit deep down: everyone who has lost a single loved one to a car wreck, a drive-by shooting, or a sudden heart attack has felt that agonizing blow to the spirit, that feeling that the world itself has had a violent burst of rage and lashed out blindly to destroy the innocent.

Who really feels like blessing God's name when the things "taken away" are no longer theoretical?

We cry out for answers, but perhaps none can be really satisfactory. As far as we know, Job never learned of the spiritual interactions behind his suffering--and even for of us who are privy to that part, the idea that God wanted to "prove a point" is not really a particularly good reason from the viewpoint of human logic. Yet the answer for us is the same as the answer Job ultimately found: to turn his eyes from his troubles to his God, to admit he had no right to argue with One so far above him, and to trust God to make everything right in the end.

That is the mindset that grants God the praise He deserves--and our hearts the peace He longs to give.

As we walk the days of our lifetimes,
May we each come to understand
That the good and the evil that meet us
All have passed through our Father's hand:
Not a thing that touches our pathways,
Be it windfall or tragedy,
Ever falls to the lot of God's children
Unless He allows it to be.

When your way seems brimming with blessings,
And your life filled with wealth and ease,
Give your thanks to the Lord, the great Giver,
Who allots things as He does please:
Do not think it is your own doing,
Nor to use for yourself alone,
But use wisely what God has allowed you,
To His praise and the power of His Throne.

When your life seems drowning in sorrows,
And each day brings another pain,
Still give praise to the Lord Who is Master,
And one day will make all things plain:
Do not moan over life's unfairness,
Nor grow angry and curse your fate,
But accept it as part of God's working;
His grace comes to all those who wait.

As we walk the days of our lifetimes,
Let us take all as from God's hand:
All the joys that we praise as His blessings,
All the pains we cannot understand,
All are shaping us in His image,
All are gifts from the Lord of Love,
Who is painting a beautiful picture
For the day we ascend above!