When We Wish Things Were Different

I eat the same thing for breakfast and lunch almost every day. I like what I like, what can I say?

I’ve learned to be flexible over the years, to drop my regularly scheduled activities when something urgent comes up. For the most part, though, I do the same household chores and activities on the same days, week in and week out.

It just makes sense to do it that way, at least to me.

As I move through the year with dawn as my OneWord, I’m noticing how much order, structure and routine God has built into His creation. Even when nature seems chaotic, He has the power to calm the storm.

(He may not use that power in ways that we prefer or expect, but somehow, everything that happens in His created world is within His sovereign control. I can’t explain this, but I choose to believe it.)

Given my well-established nature as a creature of habit, it should come as no surprise that when I read the following words by G.K. Chesterton recently, they resonated strongly:

Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, ‘Do it again’; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony.

It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore.

I don’t have childlike vitality or divine strength and creativity, but the older I get, the more I appreciate all three.

And what a joy to remember that, like the dawn, God’s mercies are new every morning. No matter what’s going on in our lives, what the day might hold—planned or unplanned—His mercies are fresh. Abundant. Worth waking up for.

Even when we wish for things in our life to be different. When we long for the way things used to be or miss loved ones who are no longer with us. In some way—even if it’s barely perceptible to our human eyes—every day is a fresh start, a new beginning.

Here’s what I’m learning as I notice the dawn. Life goes on. The sun comes up in the morning and goes down in the evening. Right now, it’s up before I am. In a few months, it will make its appearance a little bit later every day, until once again, it will be dark well past 7 a.m.

Whenever dawn happens, though, it still happens.

Even in the hardest seasons, God is there. We may not feel Him, or see Him work in the specific ways that we pray for. But still, He is with us.

This is where popular worship songs proclaiming God’s miraculous deeds sometimes rub me the wrong way. Yes, He performs miracles. But very often, the greater work is sustaining His children through their darkest days.

And here’s what we need to remember: The faith that remains after we’ve been through the fire, the desert, the storm—the faith that is renewed every day, just like the dawn—this is the faith that will lead us home.

♥ Lois

P.S. I’m linking up this week with OneWord2022, #tellhisstory, InstaEncouragements, Recharge Wednesday, Let’s Have Coffee and Grace & Truth.