because He bears repeating

During Spring Break my junior year of college I took a road trip with my now husband and two of our guy friends to New York City.  Looking back now, I wonder what I was thinking as I voluntarily trapped myself in a van for 15 hours with three guys.  All of my girlfriends were going on a trip to Biloxi for one of their 21st birthdays, a trip which my parents did not find it a good idea for me to go on, so it was either head out with the boys or go home alone.  If I'm being honest, there was also a small part of me that was hoping to get a little diamond ring action in a picturesque part of Central Park...ok, so maybe I do know what I was thinking.

On the most budget-friendly--read desperately frugal because we were poor college students--NYC trip imaginable we did anything and everything that was free and cheap.  Our biggest splurges were discount matinee tickets to a broadway show and the ridiculous amount it costs to ride an elevator to the top of the empire state building.  One moment that fondly sticks out in my head is us sitting on the sidewalk devouring food we bought from a grocery store deli with whatever cash we happened to scrounge together between the four of us.  Awe, memories.

The majority of our trip required us to walk, A LOT.  One day as we were navigating the city we realized the course we needed to take was exactly the same path as the day before.  These three males I was with found it hilarious to also repeat every conversation and comment that was made the day before as well.  There's a chance this hilarity only lasted a brief amount of time, but to this girl it might as well have been forever.  My husband not only finds this story funny but also loves to act it out in other places as well.  Apparently repetition is the key to comedy.  I don't know about that.  Repetition tends to be the key to unlocking all kinds of anger within my soul.

While I agree smiling is a good thing, efficiency is my favorite--anyone catch that Elf reference!?  My days revolve around what needs to get done, who needs to go where, and how can it be completed in the most efficient way possible.  Days like today when I drove into the driveway after dropping my babies off at school only to discover a forgotten lunch box on the van floor makes me seethe just a bit. Not because a child made a mistake, but because now instead of going straight into the house to begin the next thing I had to turn around, go back, repeat the act I had just completed.

I want to walk up a mountain and reach its peak.  I want to start each day with everything just as I left it.  I want to remember each lesson taught so the next day only holds new ones.  I want God to just finish His work in me already so I can move on with my life.  Yeah, that last one made me stop in my tracks too.

The truth that each day we grow in faith we realize how much more we need to grow in faith can be rough at times, especially for those who like to accomplish, check off, and move on.  God did not create us with the intention of teaching us all we need to know so that we can go off on our own.  He created us to constantly not only need, but desire to reach for Him, over and over looking for His ways and not our own, seeing our weaknesses so that we ask for His strength.  He created us for repetition. The repetition of dying to ourselves, of letting the gospel overflow in our hearts, so that we can pick up the cross and follow Him.

Lara Williams, blogger and author, wrote, "We cannot coast today on yesterday's faith"  Yes, yesterday's faith taught us lessons, yes, yesterday's faith drew us closer, but our human hearts, chock full of the black stuff as Logan called it, are always trying to take over.  Paul Tripp reminds us that, "(sin) renders us unable." and we need help, on the daily.  

The probably familiar verse in Lamentations, "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases: his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness." is one that can be read with a warm feeling of comfort and encouragement, but also, with just a slightly different head tilt of perspective, is a loving reminder as well.  His steadfast love never ceases because we NEED never ceasing love.  His mercies never come to an end because we NEED endless mercy.  They are new every single morning because every single morning when we wake up we are in need of that same mercy.  Live, love, and repeat.  Yes, Lord, great is YOUR faithfulness, because I would have straight given up on me already!

He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  I on the other hand can go from got it altogether to hot mess in a second.  And even still He is with me, reminding me, repeating His Truths over and over, then circling around and doing it again.

Yes, yesterday's faith was a blessed gift, but it did not complete in us what is needed for today.  Today I still need Him just as much, today I am thankful He is repetitious.

I am praying for you that you not only see his constancy, but that you embrace it wholeheartedly, not feeling guilt because you once again need to have something repeated, but that you celebrate a God that bears repeating.  Pray for me.