Mercy and, well, ahem, Toilet Tissue

The advent of a precipitous spike in COVID cases and the consequent new barrage of orders and directives in our state this week resulted in our once again being greeted with the disturbing sight of empty shelves in the store—the shelves where the toilet paper should be. I do not want to offend sensitivities by using such an analogy. The item is so mundane its moniker seems too crude to use in parallel with a spiritual truth, but there really isn’t a more sophisticated, polished synonym, well, perhaps, toilet tissue. Tissue sounds a bit more refined than “paper.” But, I digress. In danger of further insulting your genteelness, I must note that the aforementioned is a daily needed essential. That we deem it so is evident by the run on it in times of crises. Like mercy. One of the most beloved portions of Scriptures that gives us so much encouragement is this one: “It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.” (Lam 3:22-23). How often have we taken heart by proclaiming, “His mercies are new every morning”? Perhaps, it is just me, but in the past, I visualized this passage like this: The storehouse of heaven’s shelves are completely replete with God’s mercy. During each day I required mercy for my sins, difficulties, weaknesses, dilemmas, crises, etc. As I ask, God takes the needed mercy off the shelf and gives it to me. Sometimes, I don’t even have to ask Him. He sees my need for mercy, and He takes it from the shelf and sends it my way. Because of my constant drawing on His mercy throughout the day and His constant sending it to me, by day’s end, I imagine, I have depleted the shelves of it--at least the shelf designated and dedicated to the mercies allotted to me. But, thank God, while I sleep, God or his angels restock the shelves with mercy. By the time I awake the next day, the shelves are again abounding with mercies for the day to come. Like this: Imagine one evening during this COVID crisis, you grabbed the last package of toilet tissue off the shelves of, say, Kroger’s. It won’t be near enough for you and your family in the days to come. As you turn from the empty shelves, you wonder what you will do. Later, at home, you pray for a new shipment to come in during the night. It does! While you sleep, the employees restocked the shelves. The next day, going back to Kroger’s, you exhale with relief at seeing the shelves again loaded with toilet tissue. This was my concept of God’s mercies being new every morning though it was always nebulous in thought and I never articulated it. Yet, thinking of toilet tissue during the COVID crises, it occurred to me this was NOT how it was with the mercies of God. However often in a day that we require and received God’s mercies, even if it amounts to truckloads of them, we do not tax, diminish, or deplete the mercies of God in the least. He still has just as much at the end of our day as He did at the beginning. His mercies are eternal. His mercies are inexhaustible. His mercy is always greater than my need. Today. Every day. Then, how are they new every morning? I think the answer is in ”morning.” What happens in the morning? The sun comes up, and we call it a new day. The sun was not depleted the day before and then recreated for the next. The sun in the morning greets us when and where and how it did the previous day. Thus, it’s a new day. God’s mercies are new every morning, not because more of them were generated and produced during the night. God’s mercies are new because they greet us the sun at the start of a new day. A new day brings new need for mercies because a new day brings new dilemmas, new foibles, new faults, and even new sins. Every morning, there is mercy yet again for that day’s developing necessities of it. The same ole sun displays a brand new sunrise. In a sunrise, the orb may manifest itself in a more spectacular fashion on a particular day. We marvel, “What a beautiful sunrise today.” Yet, there was nothing different about the sun. The reason the sunrise appeared more spectacular was due to something different about that day’s atmospheric conditions. The unique brilliance of a day’s sunrise could even be contributed to a coming storm. Sometimes because of the conditions of our day, God’s mercy can seem particularly more marvelous. His mercy was always so, but there was something we encountered, dealt with, struggled with, that made His mercy seem more particularly remarkable on that day. The sun’s shining throughout the day does not diminish its radiance nor heat in the least. Not at all. It will have the same brilliance and heat tomorrow. His mercy received throughout one day does not diminish it for the next. His mercies are new every morning. Tomorrow’s new day with new problems. But, rest, assured, there will be mercy available. Hearing the news of a possible shutdown, people make a run on toilet paper. There are times we need to make a run on mercy. All of us at once, sensing our need, rush to God crying out for mercy. Even that moment of mass demand never depletes God’s abundance in the least. It diminishes it not even imperceptibly. I cannot promise you that tomorrow the shelves will have been restocked with toilet tissue. But, tomorrow there will yet be mercy. The same mercy, yet so refreshingly new.