What changed?

God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out, his merciful love couldn’t have dried up. They’re created new every morning. How great your faithfulness! I’m sticking with God (I say it over and over). He’s all I’ve got left. (Lamentations 3:22-24 MSG)

Do you ever feel like you have nothing or no one left? We can all get to the end of our day, a particularly challenging season in our lives, or some moment of panic and drama, feeling like we have no one else with us as it all comes to an end. What we must never forget is that Jesus is still with us - he hasn't abandoned us. In fact, he brings new levels of his mercy and kindness just when we need it most.

His love never runs out, even when ours falters a bit more than we'd like. His loyalty toward us isn't lessened just because our loyalty to follow him in full obedience and trust has faltered. His mercy draws us back in - his love embraces us even when we think ourselves unlovable or unworthy of his care. Faithfulness on our part might be measured by how 'good' we feel at the end of the day. Faithfulness on his part is measured in terms of how much he loves us and continues to love us even when the 'good' we did wasn't quite as 'good' as we'd planned.

We choose to stick with God even through tough times. The hardest choice to stick with him comes more when times are not so tough for us. In the 'easy times' we tend to wander or get 'slack' in our obedience, don't we? We get complacent and settle into the 'routine' of serving him rather than the challenges. When our relationship becomes 'routine', it grows stale. Sometimes we need a little shake up of our routine in order to experience the freshness of his love and the goodness of his mercy once again.

Never look at a challenging day or season as him not loving you or abandoning you to some 'bad place'. See it as his mercies being renewed - revealing just a bit more about his intense love for us and his power to keep us even when we don't know how things could ever work out. His love is always consistent, but in those times, we may feel like it is being 'intensified'. It hasn't changed - our perception and openness in receiving all he has for us is what changed. Just sayin!