Morning by morning new mercies I see.
(Great is Thy Faithfulness Thomas O. Chisholm 1923)
This kind of behavior is very strange for me. I usually don’t initiate such things, but I couldn’t take it any longer. However, my strange behavior got worse. I began to get rid of clothes that I hadn’t worn in a while, but it didn’t stop there. After I finished my closets, I organized all of my hunting equipment, all of the computer software, two junk boxes, and the entertainment cabinet. This inspired my wife to clean out the kitchen, and on Sunday, after church, we cleaned out the attic.
There was a huge amount of clutter that we were able to get rid of. We filled up two outside garbage cans, and filled up the bed of my truck with a load to go to the recycling center. We felt so much better after all of that cleaning and throwing away. Now we have room for the items that we use regularly and we know where to find them!
It always seems much easier to ignore messes like these when we don’t see them. If you walk into our house, you would not know that we had spent almost two whole days cleaning and throwing out unused items. You would have never seen them if you had been there a week before.
Our lives are like that sometimes. It is much easier to ignore the things that we need to do to make our lives better, because those things usually require daily effort. It is easier to throw things into the attic or in a cabinet where they won’t be seen, than to make the effort to maintain them and keep them organized all the time.
We don’t like to do things that take a daily effort. Of course, things like bathing and brushing our teeth we do because we must in order to remain healthy and socially acceptable. However, most other things that we have to do every day, of ever month, of every year, annoy us. Those tasks remind us of Sisyphus, the mythological king who was punished by Zeus, for eternity, to roll a large stone up a hill, only to have it roll back down again, over and over.
One year, when I was a banker, I surpassed my annual goal for loan production by the month of July. I was elated. I thought the pressure would be off for the rest of the year. However, I failed to realize that I still had monthly goals to reach. Even though I had surpassed my yearly goal I still had to meet monthly and daily goals.
We will never reach a place with God where we are finished and can take it easy. Each time we move closer to God, He gives us new objectives and new challenges. He is growing us. Avoiding spending time with God daily is like shoving things in the attic or under the rug. They are still there, but we are ignoring them. God is still there. His call is still on our lives to follow Him. He still wants our hearts to be given to Him each day, not because we think we have to, but because He loves us and wants us to love Him.
As you are thinking about how to make this year better than the last, figure out how God fits into your life. Don’t think in terms of the whole year, but in daily terms. Ask yourself, “What am I going to do to make my walk with Christ stronger each day?” Take it day by day and see that the Lord is good!
If you would like some help in getting your daily time with God started, here are some great helps!
Spurgeon's Daily Meditations
My Utmost for His Highest
Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. (Luke 9:23-24)
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