Sunday thoughts: his mercies are new every morning

I feel incredibly privileged by the walk to school I share with my daughter.  It consists mainly of the river towpath and at this time of year the sun is still rising, mist is coming off the river, and the crisp, bright mornings are especially beautiful.  As we walked along during this week, I was struck by what a blessing the rhythm of each new day is.  Each morning everything is new again.  It's a new day and a fresh start.  We tend to put yesterday behind us and look forward.  And when we are blessed with a beautiful sunrise or cool fresh air, it reminds us powerfully of that fact.

Our mornings may not always seem beautiful, but we can still marvel at the wisdom of God in ordering our home and the patterns of our lives so that we have a fresh start each day.  In the very first chapter of the Bible we hear how God names the day and night (Genesis 1:5).  He assigns the sun, moon and starts to mark of times and seasons, including day and night (Genesis 1:25)..  These statements are not so much about the physical creation of the cosmos, although they point to that too, but the bringing of order and meaning to it.

The reasons dawn is so much more to us than simply the earth revolving to face the sun, is because God made it that way.  He gave us these patterns to live by - days, weeks and years.  A 10-day week has been tried several times in history, but it never worked because we're simply not designed that way.  Artificial light cannot lift our mood and nourish our bodies in the same way as sunlight.  And God blesses us with night to break up the days, to sleep and renew with a fresh start each morning.  The pattern he designed us to live in was one in which we can keep starting afresh, hoping for things to be better, and resting in the certainty that the sun will rise.

Psalm 19:1 says: The heavens declare the glory of God - each morning when we see the dawn, we see something of what God is like - his steadfast love, care for all creation and the light that shines.   But sometimes our mornings are dark and dreary.  Sometimes we dread the day ahead, and other mornings are filled with pain and frailty.  I once heard a wonderful analogy about how we see God's glory in a fallen world.  Creation reflects God's glory like a mirror, but because of our broken, fallen world, the mirror is shattered.  Therefore we still see God's glory reflected, but it is in small parts, distorted.

But that renewal, that fresh start we experience each day to a greater or lesser extent, is only shadow of the fresh start that God offers us through his son: the true light and the perfect dawn.  For Jesus said: I am the light of the world: whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life' (John 8:12).  For God offers us the ultimate fresh start.  

Come, let’s talk this over, says the Lord; no matter how deep the stain of your sins, I can take it out and make you as clean as freshly fallen snow. Even if you are stained as red as crimson, I can make you white as wool! (Isaiah 1:18).

I love the way the Living Bible translates these words in Isaiah.  God is always there, offering us that fresh start, as certain as the sun rises each morning.

And as we walk with him, waiting for his glory to be known in full, certain of his promise, yet still surrounded by the temptations of this world and our own weaknesses, God still gives us a fresh start each morning - to love him anew, to put the night behind us, and to look forward to the ultimate dawn. 

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 3:12-14