Check Your Mail

eDevotion

Encouragement for your daily walk with God 

Part of the duties of my great Admin Assistant is to go to the Post Office every day and pick up the church’s mail. Exciting? No it isn’t. Important? Indeed! Sure, there’s a lot of “junk mail” to be thrown away, but we also get communication from our missionaries and other important stuff. 

Hold on to that for just a moment.

I read the book of Lamentations last week and couldn't avoid the truth that Jeremiah was in the pits, literally. His “lament” in chapter 3.19 is heart-wrenching, “I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me." I think in Hebrew that means, "In the pits,” right? 

From that pit of despair, Jeremiah revealed how his hope is restored. “This I call to mind and therefore I have hope” [v. 21]. Whatever it is that he calls to mind must be a valued truth. Here it is [vvs 22-24]: “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. “The LORD is my portion, says my soul, “therefore I will hope in Him.”

Are you limping along these days? Are you in a pit of despair? The hope of Jeremiah is YOUR hope too! A pastor friend of mine told me that, as daily discipline, he read this passage, then prayed concerning it every day. He would lift his hands palms down to the Lord, symbolizing the release of yesterday. Then, he would would turn his palms upward to receive what God would give him that day. That’s really not a bad idea. Drop yesterday’s accumulation; received today’s strength. And he would always say, “EVERY MORNING!”

May I encourage you this morning by saying, “A once-a-week fill up at a worship service just won’t do.” And some don’t always make it to those services making it weeks or even months before their “fill up.” What happens between those times? A growing mountain of stress, frustration, paralysis, frayed nerves. 

OK, remember my Admin Assistant going to the Post Office? That’s her first responsibility every day. She gets the important communications the church needs, and it comes daily. That’s what we need to do with God. We come to Him daily for that important message He has for us. It renews our hope. God has a new mercy for you each day. Be sure you stop and pick it up before rushing into your day!

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; Lamentations 3.22-23a