New Every Morning

Going back to the yard behind our garage and house you will meet the most delightful flower planted in our yard. The area that it grows in is a small strip of unused soil at the edge of the sidewalk and under the fence. Nothing else would be able to have enough room in this small swatch of ground and grow like this one does.

The plant is our Morning Glory and it stretches for about 12 feet along the fence. Each of the Morning Glory plants started from a small seed that pushed a small shoot from the ground a few weeks after the planting. Then with a speed, that is unusual in our plant world, it climbed to the top of the fence clinging to the netting we provided for the shoots.

Now it is almost scary as the long runners reach out to find new support and any possible thing that they can grab on to. The squirrels, that make the top of the fence their highway, struggle to get through the new bush of branches and leaves of the Morning Glory.

If you have had a Morning Glory in your yard you will know that the flowers come early in the darkness of each day. By sun up they are in their full array peeking from below the large rich leaves. Truly they are providing a “glory” for our yard in an unusual place.

A New Beginning…
In my world I have witnessed a new “planting” similar to our Morning Glory. I observed it last evening for the first time. It was a launch of a new Bible Study/Support group for men returning from prison. Through a unique series of events the Lord brought some more men into my life. They have arrived in our community from prison over the last few months. Last evening I met with them to launch a new group.

None of these men can get out to church. Someday perhaps that will happen in God’s timing. For now they are doing different things on Sunday AM. Last evening we began the first steps of worship together. It is their “church” where we sat together talking about God and what God has done in our lives up to this point. The meeting lasted longer than a normal church service would have and the freedom within the meeting was amazing.

I want to draw the story of our Morning Glory plants together with the group meeting last night. The men in our new group are very much like the plants in our yard – they are planted in an unusual way and in a place that you would not expect them to grow much. Other people would not grow where these men do. Yet in the midst of their settings and with difficult backgrounds, where it would seem impossible for life to even exist let alone change, they are experiencing God in very unusual ways. The evidence of God’s Glory in their lives is amazing.

As the men shared where they are in their journey with God they opened up and told amazing stories of how the tragedies of their lives had driven them from God… or they had run from God. Then as they shared their stories it was so evident how God had continued to show his grace in their lives and stayed with them until they were ready to yield their lives to Jesus. Each one had experienced an “amazing grace”.

Last evening I witnessed new blossoms spring from their lives as they shared their stories with each other. These are the new Morning Glory plants in my life. I went home praising God for the new start of His Glory in the lives of broken men.

God is doing something new.

A Scripture to consider…
Lamentations 3 describes the work that God does… It specially describes the men that I met last evening. Does it describe your life too?

1 I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.
2 He has driven me away and made me walk in darkness rather than light;
3 indeed, he has turned his hand against me again and again, all day long.
4 He has made my skin and my flesh grow old and has broken my bones.
5 He has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.
6 He has made me dwell in darkness like those long dead.
7 He has walled me in so I cannot escape; he has weighed me down with chains.
8 Even when I call out or cry for help, he shuts out my prayer.
9 He has barred my way with blocks of stone; he has made my paths crooked.
10 Like a bear lying in wait, like a lion in hiding,
11 he dragged me from the path and mangled me and left me without help.
12 He drew his bow and made me the target for his arrows.
13 He pierced my heart with arrows from his quiver.
14 I became the laughingstock of all my people; they mock me in song all day long.
15 He has filled me with bitter herbs and sated me with gall.
16 He has broken my teeth with gravel; he has trampled me in the dust.
17 I have been deprived of peace; I have forgotten what prosperity is.
18 So I say, "My splendor is gone and all that I had hoped from the LORD."
19 I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall.
20 I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me.
21 Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope:
22 Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.
23 They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
24 I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him."
25 The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him;
26 it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.
27 It is good for a man to bear the yoke while he is young.
28 Let him sit alone in silence, for the LORD has laid it on him.
29 Let him bury his face in the dust— there may yet be hope.
30 Let him offer his cheek to one who would strike him, and let him be filled with disgrace.
31 For men are not cast off by the Lord forever.
32 Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love.