New Mercies Every Morning

"...my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is; so I say, "My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the LORD."

Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies 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.

(Lamentations 3:17-25)

"Kyrie eleison!" (Lord have mercy!) has been the heart cry and prayer of the people of God from time immemorial. The more we sense our desperate need, the more we cry out "Kyrie eleison!"

There have been more then a few times over the years when I have found the cry for mercy to be the only prayer I can make. In those times I feel like a sheep that can only bleat one phrase over and over again.

"Lord have mercy..."

The cares of the world press in. You see the needs of others around you and the desperate crying needs of the world at large and sense how quickly your own world could be turned upside down. Your own needs and fears become overwhelming. You have a sense of how vulnerable and fragile your life and world really is, and how it all hangs as by a thread that could so easily break, shattering your world and leaving your life in shambles.

"Lord have mercy..."

So it is that over the past week or so I have found encouragement and joy in meditating on that part of Lamentations 3 that reads "The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness."

His mercies toward His people NEVER end. His mercies are NEW every morning.

Jesus said, "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof" (Matt 6:34). We can also say sufficient unto the day are the mercies thereof.

Each day the mercies of God toward His people are new and fresh. His mercies don't get worn out or wrinkled with age. The reservoir of God's mercy is as limitless and as infinite as God Himself. And we will continue to be the recipiants of those mercies throughout eternity.

Kyrie eleison...

~ The Billy Goat ~