Fresh Mercies Shared
/The faithful love of the Lord never ends!
His mercies never cease.
Great is his faithfulness;
his mercies begin afresh each morning.
Lamantations 22: 22-23 NLT
Before I return to my life in Ohio, I would like to share another aha from my mornings at sunrise at the Jersey Shore.
In my previous post, I wrote of the new realization that came to me as I viewed sunrises this trip ... that although our God is unchanging, God's mercies change day by day, just as the unique sunrise changes moment by moment. So too for us, each of our todays is unique with different circumstances, different joys, different sorrows, and different stresses. God who is our All meets us in each with exactly what we need as we trust Him for our today.
I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance;
therefore, I will hope in him!”
Lamentations 3:24 NLT
Well, here is my final thought. God intends that His mercies spread to shape the atmosphere around us. In other words, His mercies are meant to be shared. You may ask where I got that from sunrises. Well, let me tell you what I noticed.
One of the days as I was watching the sky before the literal official sunrise in Belmar NJ, all of a sudden I noticed the sky just north of Belmar along the coast over Asbury Park. There was a huge white puffy cloud off to the left of where the fire-ball sun would appear. It was beginning to glow with light and colors slowly spreading from the area of the approaching sunrise.
Here is a photo of what I saw:
Looking north from Belmar toward Asbury Park
Isn't that amazing?
I hadn't noticed it at first because this is where I was focused:
View toward the site of the sunrise (east)
So I almost missed what was going on all around me!
It was then that I began to realize the picture, the metaphor, if you will. Just as the changes in the sunrise were affecting the atmosphere around it, so too the Lord's fresh mercies for our day aren't for us only. They are meant to affect the "atmosphere" around us, that is, the people and situations in our daily lives.
So when we walk with our mercy-giving Lord through the day we have before us, others around us can't help but be touched by Lord's love, life, and provision that He pours into and through us.We who are His children are as one writer puts it, "human vehicles of the divine life." We are His channels. So we not only receive what we need for our day, but others can experience His peace and love and grace through us ... even if we don't consciously realize it.
And you know what? The opposite is true. A whole atmosphere can be poisoned when we live by our own strength, complaining about our circumstances, playing the blame game, being the "drama queen" in the situation, fighting against the life we have been given. It's tragic, isn't it? Because that is exactly where God meets us with all we need. He is our Life. He lives in us and through us as us as we let Him.
So friends, how is the atmosphere around you right now? Is there tragedy and suffering? In the midst of it all, the Prince of Peace is there. He brings peace into the midst of even the hard stuff ... in and through you. Trust HIM. Do you have any other alternative ... truly? Amen.
