Lifetime Daily DevotionsSample

New Beginnings

His lovingkindness begins afresh each day.
Lamentations 3:23 TLB

A new month. Always a challenge. More, it seems, than a new day--but those are a challenge, too.

I thank You, Lord, for new days, new hours, new minutes, for even the new seconds! New beginnings.

Teach us to number our days and recognize how few they are; help us to spend them as we should.
Psalm 90:12; TLB

Yesterday--the day before today and the day before that--were bad days, Lord. What makes a bad day? I'd like to say my topsy-turvy world or the people around me of my circumstances, but I know that isn't true. The only way I can have a bad day is by not allowing You to handle the day.

The battle is not yours but God's.
2 Chronicles 20:15

Well, on this particular day my view is unclouded, and for this I thank You. It's pretty neat when I open my eyes and can see clearly out my window. I don't have to fret about things like wearing my oxfords to keep my feet from getting wet; I don't have to change my hairdo because of what happens when it's "spray versus moisture"; I don't have to start hunting for my umbrella or turn on my fog lights or cancel my plans because there's simply no way to see through the heavy mists.

I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am.
Philippians 4:11

Yes, I thank You, but I will not--I simply will not--praise You simply because my horizons are clear. Tomorrow my horizon may be so cloudy that I can't see my hand in front of my face! I praise You for who You are and what You are--not for what You do. This way I will never question praising You, will I, Lord (especially when I have another "bad" day)?

This is the day which the Lord has made; Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Psalm 118:24

I ask that this new month be a new start for me, allowing You to live through me more completely than I did yesterday or the other yesterdays that made up the month before yesterday.

I just must remember three basic things:
You are God.
You love me.
You are my life.

If I walk in these three truths, my day is successfully finished BEFORE IT HAS EVEN BEGUN. No circumstance, however tragic, can alter these truths, for none of them are controlled by cloudy or clear horizons.

Paul, in his second letter to Timothy (4:7), makes his final declaration of victory. Final? This is his last letter--his last words to his beloved Timothy.

"The glorious fight God gave me I have fought." God gave me today, with all of its events, and I have met each one with His strength.

"The course I was set I have finished." He planned a set course for me and I followed the plan. Through everything I have kept thinking about His love, His life, and my responsibility: to let Him love me and to let Him live His life through me, for me.

"And I have kept the faith."

I just can't go wrong when I do that, can I, Lord?