New Every Morning

 My favorite aisles in Walmart are the office supply aisles.  I love notebooks.  I love pens. I love mechanical pencils.  I love to run my fingers over them and crack them open to examine the pages.  I am very very finicky about the "tools" I put in my tool belts (backpack and pencil case, or nerd pack, as I like to call it.)

This morning, this verse was brought to my attention: "Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness" Lamentations 3:22.

Every day, in addition to praying over the concerns of others, I pray things for myself as well - things like a changed heart (make my mouth, heart, and actions like yours), a change in circumstances (aligned to His Will), and freedom (from sin, sadness, anxiety, guilt, fear, etc - I can generate quite a lengthy list with this one). 

In prayer this morning, I realized that each day is a blank sheet - like opening the cover of a brand-new notebook and staring at a crisp, pristine page.  For some, that can elicit dread.  For me, it conjures the excitement of the journey ahead.  What will be written there? 

If I ask Him, God wipes away ALL of the previous day's sins, shortcomings, and foibles.  Not just throws away, but wipes it clean.  To Him, I AM a blank sheet in a new notebook, and not just in the morning - whenever I ask! To Him, I am a blank sheet on which He can write his masterpiece.  And like me, I like to think that blank sheet gets Him excited for the journey ahead.  In my mind's eye, I see a smile on His face and a twinkle in His eye as He grabs His favorite writing utensil. 

It is ME who persistently drags yesterday's mess - the giant smudges things I tried and failed to do, the black ink spills of fear and anxiety, the cross-outs of stupid things I said or did - to the brand-new page.  Not Him.  

If I reframe my thinking and look at each new day the way HE does, I don't carry any of it over. . .because it doesn't exist anymore.  Yesterday is gone.  That was then, and this is now. 

As a result, I am free to see the page the way He does, and I get to create content right along with Him - Letter-by-letter, word-by-word, sentence-by-sentence. In short, I compose the content He creates and the story He wills to be written. In order to do that, I have to be focused and disciplined to be attentive to the next cue and prompt from Him, and together, we create the masterpiece He wants my life to be. 

"Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness" Lamentations 3:22.