Good morning, Anthem!

It’s been a fun week as so many of your faces have come to my mind. I do hope you’re doing well! We’ve been praying for you and I trust that God is at work in a big way. If you have anything to share about what God has been saying to you or how you’ve seen his power at work, we’d love to hear from you!

Today’s devo comes with a picture from our guest bathroom… We have one of these boards and it’s a pretty rolling message that gets “edited” frequently. With three teenage boys in the house, it ends up with some funny notes. The other day this message showed up and it has been in my head pretty nonstop since then. 

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies are never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore I will hope in him. The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. —Lamentations 3:22-24

There is something fresh and daily about God’s interaction with us that is so powerful. God didn’t simply do things once and let them alone… he meets us every day. He has more for us every day. His resources are endless and they literally never come to an end.

Exercise #1: You know your situation and what things you are facing. What would fresh grace, fresh mercy look like for today? Take a moment and reflect on the Scriptures that you have in your memory bank… write down a verse or two that demonstrate God’s mercy for you today.

The second part of the passage says that the Lord is good to those who wait for him and for the soul that seeks him.

Let’s talk about waiting on the Lord and seeking him for a moment. Sometimes we think of waiting as passive, but Lamentations gives us a picture that even in waiting on the Lord, there is an active seeking from our soul. Dallas Willard speaks to this:

The reality of God’s voice does not make seeking for it unnecessary. When I seek for something, I look for it everywhere. It’s when we seek God earnestly, prepared to go out of our way to examine anything that might be his overture toward us—including obvious things like Bible verses or our own thoughts—that he promises to be found (Jer 29:13). But we’ll be able to seek him only if we honestly believe that he might explicitly address us in ways suitable to his purposes in our lives. —D. Willard “Hearing God”

Exercise #2: His mercies are there, now it’s time to seek them out. Again, you know your situation and what you are facing. You have some Scriptures that you’ve pondered that bring grace and mercy into your situation. Now we are going to ask specifically for God to speak to us, encourage us and prepare us for the tasks of the day. You can formulate your own prayer, but I recommend that you write it down and that it includes a specific ask for mercies for the things of your day. Ask for both the things that you have on your mind and the things that the Lord would have for you to do!

Fresh grace is such a refreshing concept. The Lord is meeting me this morning with the grace that I need to bless those around me and work for the welfare of my community. God is excited for me to wake up so he can dispense more mercies to me… that is wild. I love fresh grace in the morning.

Praying God’s grace for you today!

Matt and Kristen