Day 29 of 30
New Every Morning
From the Peace in Chaos devotional series
"It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness."
— Lamentations 3:22-23
Reflection
Context matters here. Lamentations is a funeral song. The city of Jerusalem has just been razed. The writer is sitting in literal ashes, watching smoke. He is not in a coffee shop journaling about gratitude. He is grieving a catastrophe — and from inside that catastrophe, with no evidence yet of recovery, he writes the line we put on greeting cards. "New every morning" is not a phrase from someone whose life is going well. It is a phrase from someone who has lost almost everything and has discovered, almost against his will, that mornings still keep arriving and so does God. That is a different kind of hope than the cheerful version. It is the kind that gets up.
Prayer
Tomorrow morning, before checking your phone, walk to a window. Look at the light, however gray. Whisper one word: "again." That is the prayer. Repeat the next morning, and the next.
Peace Challenge
Tonight, place your phone in a different room than where you sleep. Set a non-phone alarm if you need one. The single change of where your eyes land in the first sixty seconds of consciousness — light versus screen — is the most practical way to practice this verse. Try it for one morning. Notice what is different at noon.