The Best Part Of Waking Up

Some mornings are greeted by the warmth of the sun and a peaceful feeling in your gut that says, “Today I am blessed because God loves me!”

Some mornings…um, not so much.

 

Some mornings, even though God does indeed still love me, it seems life starts slapping me around the moment I have my first conscience thought.
Admit it, you’ve been there.

Some of these mornings are of our own making. We allow our thought life to go where it shouldn’t (anger, bitterness, fear, worry, etc.). We allow the pressing issues of life to keep us from focusing on God’s love and grace. We allow life to take ground it shouldn’t.

But then there are mornings when, for no apparent reason, we just wake up on the wrong side of the bed. Grouchy, stressed, stinky and overwhelmed.
On those days, as the day progresses it doesn’t seem to get any better and probably worse.
When the morning sun brings with it a nasty attitude in your gut and you feel for all the world like diving back under the covers and staying there until Christmas- even if it’s 325 days away- just don’t do it.
Get up and get moving.
But how?
In the grace and power of Jesus Christ and in that power alone.
The really cool part of this though is that when we allow the power and peace of God to wash over us from the moment we plant our feet on the ground in the morning He continues to pour it out over us throughout our day and by the end of that day we are movin’ and groovin’ to the tune of a heart filled with a joyful sense of the power God has given us that day. Grace, strength and the ability to do what we never thought we could when our eyes first popped open that morning.
In Lamentations it says that every morning we all get a fresh dose of mercy and compassion.

Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed,
Because His compassions fail not.
They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I hope in Him!”    Lam. 3:22-24

Some mornings we need that mercy so much that if we didn’t have it, I’m not sure we’d make it to the coffee pot, much less anything past that.

God knew that.
So He gave us a promise that on those days, He’d give us something infinitely better than a good strong cup of coffee….good strong mercy and love right from the throne of God!
And unlike the coffee cup, it never goes empty and we can keep drinking down that mercy all day long.
Do you get how wonderful that is?
New. Every single morning.
Never gone.
Always enough.

Oh my but that’s good news! When I don’t have it in me, God does.
And I don’t have to rely on yesterday's mercy and love because I probably used most of that up then. But I get it all new for this day. The “mercy cup” is all filled up and giving off an oh so fresh and sweet smelling aroma with just the right portion for today’s need.
I like the way the NLT says it-

Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.

Fresh. New. And abundant.

That’s worth poking your nose out from under the blankets for, throwing them back and maybe even jumping heartily out of bed. Yeah, really!
Might I say, it’s even more motivating than the smell of freshly brewed coffee???!!!!

We can greet the world with a smile and song (even when it doesn’t smile back) because there’s mercy and love coming our way, no matter what else does.