Starting Over New Each Day - The Crosswalk Devotional - November 28

Starting Over New Each Day
By Lynette Kittle

“Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness” - Lamentations 3:22-23

Many individuals feel pressure at the start of a new year to start over. However, if failure to do so comes a few days, weeks, or months later, they feel defeated and like they have to wait another year to try again. Sadly New Year’s resolutions set individuals up for failure by causing them to think they only have one day each new year to start over. But the good news is God offers us the opportunity to start anew each and every day. So if we messed up the day before, we don’t have to wait for another calendar year to roll around before we begin again.

With this invitation to start over, God gives us the freedom to begin again no matter how many times we mess up and need His forgiveness and grace. For “Out of His fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given” (John 1:16).

Starting Over Day-After-Day
In the classic film “Groundhog Day” starring Bill Murray, his character has to start each day new, like the one before never happened. To his frustration, he messes up every day and is back to starting over the same day the next morning. After repeatedly beginning again day after day and increasingly messing up more and more, wears on him to the point where he falls into deep despair. In his distress, he gives up caring about his life or whether he lives or dies.

Even so, whether he wants to or not, he keeps waking up to a new day where he has to start the same day all over again. Still, with each new day, it’s like his mess-ups the day before never happened. He finally comes to the conclusion that every new day is a gift to him and offers him the opportunity to improve his life.

He comes to a point where instead of focusing on himself and seeing how much bad he could get away with, to focus on others and how he could make their lives and his life better by doing good. Eventually, over time, his day after never-ending day transforms him from a selfish and self-indulgent person to a caring, considerate and kind individual. With this revelation, he sets goals to live each one to the fullest, leading him to finally find the happiness and fulfillment he’s come to want and appreciate and ending his reliving the same day again and again.

How to Start Over Again
Although a secular movie, “Groundhog Day’s” script plays out some biblical truths. Below are three ways to move forward each day.

1. Re-evaluate our choices.
Murray’s character made progress in his life when he started examining his bad behavior and looking at where it was taking him. He got on the right path when he purposely made a choice to change his thinking and his actions. Ezekiel 18:21explains, “But if a wicked person turns away from all the sins they have committed and keeps all my decrees and does what is just and right, that person will surely live; they will not die” (Ezekiel 18:21).

2. Repent from our bad behavior.
Once Murray’s character recognized, pinpointed, and turned away from making poor choices, he changed his ways. As Acts 3:19 urges, “Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.”

3. Renew our minds.
Like Murray’s character turned away and stopped making poor choices involved his mind being changed, for Christians, this involves letting God’s word renew and transform our thinking, which will change our actions, too. Otherwise, we’re likely to fall back into old patterns.

Like Romans 12:2 encourages, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—His good, pleasing and perfect will.”

Intersecting Faith and Life:
If you messed up yesterday, know that God gives you the opportunity to begin anew today and every day. Rather than feeling stuck in failures and disappointments, ask God to direct each and every day of life, knowing you can rely on His faithfulness to help you.

Further Reading:
A Prayer for Each New Morning

Photo credit: Unsplash/Pascal Debrunner

Lynette Kittle is married with four daughters. She enjoys writing about faith, marriage, parenting, relationships, and life. Her writing has been published by Focus on the Family, Decision, Today’s Christian Woman, kirkcameron.com, Ungrind.org, StartMarriageRight.com, and more. She has a M.A. in Communication from Regent University and serves as associate producer for Soul Check TV.