December 30th Devotion

What New Mercies Mean for the New Year
By Sarah Frazer

“Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.” Lamentations 3:22-23, ESV

One of my favorite times in the morning is before the sun rises. I get up while it is still dark, grab my journal and Bible and head downstairs. I turn on the coffee and go sit on the couch while I wait for it to brew. Those are the moments when the house is quiet and I get to sit and just breathe and relax.

Although I am still a little sleepy, I open my journal or my Bible and start with prayer. Over the past thirty years of walking with God, I have met with God in a variety of ways and times during the day. But there is something special about getting up and watching the sun rise while meditating on His Word.

The sun reminds us that God is faithful. Every day, we do not doubt the sun will rise. We believe, no matter what is going on in our world, the sun will shine. It might be cloudy and stormy, but the sun eventually comes out. Every morning, we have this physical reminder of a powerful truth from God’s Word.

In the book of Lamentations, the author mourns and cries out to God because horror and destruction surround him on a daily basis. He wakes up each morning and hears more bad news. We can surely relate to that! In the middle of this book we see a shift in His perspective. Instead of waking up and focusing on all of the bad news, the author of Lamentations says he wakes up and thinks about the faithfulness of God.

Each morning, we have a reminder in the sun that God will be faithful but when I think about a New Year I am also encouraged with the thought that “new mercies” are waiting for me as well. Yes, we have God with us each day, but each year, at beginning as we feel that fresh new start, we can take moment and think about what new mercies mean for the new year.

First, we see that God’s compassion and mercy are linked together. The word “compassion” can also mean tender love, like a mother has for the child growing in her womb. God loves us so deeply, so tenderly, so intimately and this should give us reason to trust Him in the coming year. Maybe this past year has been hard when it comes to love. People tend to disappoint us and cannot love us perfectly. This is not God. In this new year may we come to God freely knowing that His compassion and tender love is waiting for us.

We also see God’s mercies are directly related to God’s faithfulness. Maybe you are like me and don’t make New Year’s resolutions. I often have a general idea of what kind of goals I want to accomplish. As I’ve gotten older, I feel more discouraged at the end of the year if I make too many goals. I’m not always faithful to do the things I set out to do in the new year. When it comes to my faithfulness, I am always falling short. God is not like that. His faithfulness is never wavering. We can trust and believe that God is working. Maybe we can’t see how He is working or if it will work out, but these verses give us this hope that God is faithful, even if we are not.

Because of God’s tender love and faithfulness, our response should be to wait and seek Him. Although this new year might mean we will face trouble or trials, we will not be out from under the hands of God. He is our salvation and He is good. No matter what bad news might be around the corner this year, we can rejoice in our faithful, merciful, and tender-loving God. May we allow Him to work this year in bringing us closer to Him!

Even though the circumstances hadn’t changed, the author of Lamentations still declared, “It is good that one should hope…”. God’s tender love, mercy, and faithfulness are reasons to hope. It isn’t up to us, and God will always come through. No matter the disappointments that have followed us into this new year, you and I can have hope. John Piper says, “Biblical hope is a confident expectation and desire for something good in the future.”

Let’s enter this new year with that kind of hope - based on God’s new mercies. Each day the sun rises, hang on to the hope that we can expect good in our future!