GOD’S LOVE

“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”

~Lamentations 3:22–23

“THE PROCESS of coming to see when and how we get off track and learning how to reorient ourselves to God is a great gift of wisdom. We drift, but God teaches us to recalibrate our lives to His mercy. We awaken afresh to His strengthening and shielding care. The Lord’s mercies are new every morning. So is our need. One of the things I love about the way the Bible portrays God’s mercies is that they speak and act in two directions. He comes to us in our sorrows and troubles, vulnerability, and weakness. Because He is our refuge, we learn to name our troubles and bring our burdens to Him (Psalm 28).

SECOND, HE comes to us in our sinfulness, drift, and blindness because He is wondrously unfair and does not deal with us as our sins deserve (Psalm 103). We learn to name our failings in confession. I need a daily awakening. You need a daily awakening. He is my strength, and He wins the one victory that most counts. He is a help. He is a comfort, and He helps my soul. He is a guide and keeper and a pilot, and He hears my cry. The fine china of Christians’ lives are their sins, their sorrows, and the fact that the Savior maps directly into their needs. When you trust in Christ, there is a fundamental sense that there is a joy and a hope and a confidence that rests, not in I—the vulnerable and straying—but in the mercy of another.

—David Powlison