Mercies New Every Morning
Audela Study Desk · 4 min read
Jeremiah finds mercy while the ruins are still smoking.
Today's Scripture
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The Devotional
Lamentations is written after Jerusalem fell. The city is broken, is gone, and the writer has spent two and a half chapters describing loss in detail. Nothing has been repaired by the time he writes these two verses.
What he says is careful. God's mercies are not consumed, and his compassions do not fail. The reason he gives is not a change in circumstances but a quality in God: great is your faithfulness. The ground of the sentence is God's character.
Then he adds the phrase most people remember: they are new every morning. Morning is when the weight of a hard season is usually heaviest, because the day has to be lived again. That is exactly where he places the mercy.
This is worth holding on to on an ordinary difficult morning. The passage does not tell you the difficulty will lift today. It tells you that God's supply toward you has not run down, and that today has its own portion of it.
Look Closer
Jeremiah says God's mercies are new every morning. He does not say the suffering disappeared overnight. The new mercy appears in the middle of the suffering, not only after it ends.
Let Scripture Answer
What gives Jeremiah hope when his circumstances have not yet changed?
Look in Scripture
- Lamentations 3:21-24
Notice what Jeremiah deliberately calls back to mind before he says, Therefore have I hope. Then read verse 24 and see what he names as his portion.
Related Scripture
Psalm 30:5
Weeping and morning are placed side by side, in that order.
Isaiah 40:31
Strength is renewed for those who wait, not for those who feel strong.
2 Corinthians 4:16-18
The inward renewal Paul describes runs day by day while the outward wears down.
Hebrews 10:23
The reason to hold the confession without wavering is that the promiser is faithful.
Remember This
God's faithfulness is not exhausted.
His mercy meets you again this morning.
Hope rests on who God is, not on what has changed.
Today's Prayer
Lord, when my circumstances make it difficult to see your goodness, bring your faithfulness back to my mind. Teach me to recognise the mercy you have given me today, and to place my hope in you. Amen.
Carry It With You
Before you begin worrying about everything tomorrow may bring, read Lamentations 3:22-24 once more and thank God for one specific mercy he has given you today.