Stress Test Devotional April 27
April 27, 2024
LAMENTATIONS 3:22-23 | 22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; 23 they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
PSALM 36:5-6a | 5 Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. 6a Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your judgments are like the great deep;
“Streams of mercy never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise
Praise the mount I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of God’s unchanging love.”
We can help God tune our hearts through our focus. There is nothing worse than a drought which impedes farming, hurts animal life, and threatens human communities. In the middle of the exilic experience, far away from Jerusalem, in the spiritually dry surroundings of pagan Babylon, the author of Lamentations insists he is experiencing a constant river of God’s mercy. Tuning our hearts begins with remembering that our “detuned moments” need not mire us in guilt, regret, or shame. We can bathe in the never ending mercy stream. Switching metaphors, Come Thou Fount reminds us that God’s mercy is not a grudging or reluctant let off — it is rooted in an unchanging passionate love that has a mountain-like capacity to remain and endure.
Take a swim in the mercy stream today.
Gracious God,
Thank you for your remarkable consistency, for your never ending love and never pausing stream of mercy! Help me let go of my own failure and shortcomings.
Amen.
