Then Wait a Moment

Photo by Kim Lance (Used by permission. Click image for more of Kim’s work)

I like being at the beginning of a new year. Feels good. Having a fresh start and all that. I think I’d like it better if it started in the spring though. It’s kind of hard to get excited when everything is bleak and dreary and gray, you know?

Springtime is when everything really is new. Color comes out of hibernation and washes the earth with beauty. Yep. I think we should move the start of the year to the first day of spring.

I go through this every year because I hate winter. After the holidays I’m ready for spring. This stretch between Christmas and April is brutal. It’s cold, and everything looks like death. Gray sky. Gray grass. Gray trees.

Maybe that’s why I hate it – because it is like death. And I really hate death. It has robbed me of loved ones, even loved pets.

But you know what? Even in the dead of winter there is something new, and it might not be what you think. The Lord’s compassions are new every morning. Look:

I remember my affliction and my wandering,

the bitterness and the gall.

I well remember them,

and my soul is downcast within me.

Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope:

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.

I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;

therefore I will wait for him.”

The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him,

to the one who seeks him;

(Lamentations 3:19-25, NIV)

My friend, if you’re in a place where the New Year doesn’t feel new…

If you’re thinking that the bitter gall of your life will never turn sweet…

If you are without hope…

Just remember that Jesus suffered the bitter gall so that you can have the Lord’s mercy and compassion and comfort.

Then wait just a moment for the Lord’s compassion on you. He longs to shower you with the warmth of His love. He waits only for your permission to let Him love you.

Tell your Heavenly Father what you need and wait just a moment. Every single morning remind yourself that His compassion on you is new and fresh and exactly what you need for that day. And tomorrow? It will be brand new again.

Why? Because the One who loves you is faithful.

Phyllis Keels

A New Resolution

“Do not call to mind the former things, or ponder things of the past. Behold, I will do something new,
 now it will spring forth;
 will you not be aware of it? 
I will even make a roadway in the wilderness,
rivers in the desert.” Isaiah 43:18-19, NASB

Today many people will start keeping their New Year’s resolutions. I’ve never been much for resolutions on the first day of the year. Not against them. Just can’t keep them.

I think that’s because they remind me of works – works of trying to live by the Old Testament Law of God. Trying to be righteous and good by what we do, not by living in the New Testament of grace and receiving the gift of being righteous, because Jesus has already paid for all of our sinfulness.

Not that there’s anything wrong with doing good things or honoring the Old Testament Law. That Law is good. It’s just that the Law has already been fulfilled – Jesus met the requirements of it for us.

I know what you’re thinking. Aren’t we supposed to do good things; make ourselves better? Of course, but that “doing” is supposed to come from the grace (the lovingkindness and unearned favor) of God to us.

Living in grace is more about our response to the Lord out of gratitude. It is a change of heart more than our doing out of duty. All of this is because Jesus has done all the doing. He asks us to believe in what He has done.

That being said, New Year’s Day is either a challenge or an opportunity. If we have not dealt with grief and loss in the past year, it’s probably an opportunity – an opportunity to do things differently and improve something in our lives. If we have dealt with loss, it is probably a challenge.

We can’t help but look back at the pain. When we look forward, we just see more pain – more days, weeks and months without the loved ones who have died. More wondering how we will survive another day as we stare into what appears to be a black hole of the future.

My friend, if this is where you are, please let me give you the precious verses the Lord gave to me the day after my daughter died. When I was certain my heart would shrivel within me and that I would die – really, physically die from the grief – the Lord put it on someone’s heart to send me this:

Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: 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. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.” Lamentations 3:21-24, NIV

Therefore we have hope… Oh, dear friend! I think these verses saved my life. When I read them, I collapsed into a chair and wept. I remembered that they were used a long time ago in one of my favorite hymns called “Great is Thy Faithfulness” by Thomas O. Chisholm, with music by William M. Runyan.

Long ago, when I was a child, the Lord gave me a love for this hymn. Then on that day when I read these verses, He showed me why. He had made the them new.

He is always making things new, and He wants to make His compassions new to you every morning. He wants to make a beautiful roadway for you through this wilderness of grief. He wants to make rivers to refresh you in this desert of loss.

Why? Because He loves you so. Again, I say, He loves you so!

If we do make a resolution this year, here is one I think we can keep. Let’s call this to mind: to believe, not to do works, but to have hope; a confident expectation that the Lord’s compassions are already new every morning, and great is His faithfulness!

That is a resolution I can embrace, because the Lord is the One doing the doing. I will be resting in His works. See the kindness of our Heavenly Father? I pray that you will be able to see it too, my friend, so you can have rest this day, and every day.

Phyllis Keels