A scarcity of mercy

In the western world, we give ourselves a clean slate on January 1. It’s almost as if we intuit that mercy, so precious and radical, should also be rare. Once a year seems generous enough for new beginnings and second chances. It’s a beautiful day of optimism and possibilities and enthusiasm.

But the enthusiasm wanes. The goal doesn’t quite materialize. Eventually, the perfect streak ends and the fresh start is spoiled.

Sometimes, you don’t know what you don’t know.

A few years ago, I offered to look over a one-sheet for one of my novelist friends. (For the uninitiated, a one-sheet is like a page-long book brochure that authors use to pitch their works to literary agents and editors.)

I didn’t know what I didn’t know about one-sheets at the time, but pretty quickly I got an inkling. My friend included a section describing her novel’s “spiritual payload.” When I saw that, I pondered it a bit. I’d never heard the term before, and worse, I wasn’t even sure I knew the spiritual theme of my book.

Flash forward to now. Wonder of wonders, I do know the theme of my current work-in-progress. When my critique partner asked, I even had the answer ready. “God’s mercies are new every morning,” I told her confidently, having not yet stopped to reflect that I don’t know what I don’t know about God’s mercies.

“Dawn.” Image courtesy of dan at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

Our compassion fails.

I’ll tell you what I do know, though. We are hard on each other. We are hard on ourselves.

By tomorrow, some people will be berating themselves for the lost opportunity to change, their hearts whispering discouragements like, “I didn’t even make it for one day.”

But what if January 2 was as meaningful and rich in promise as January 1? What if the opportunity for change, for growth, for newness, came not just one day a year, but every day of our lives?

Via resolutions, we like to plan and control and schedule our self-improvement, but the thing is, we don’t need a special day to ask Jesus for a clean slate. I’m all for doing better, being better–but the mystery of salvation is so much bigger than the same old “new year, new you” routine.

Scarcity no longer

I don’t know what I don’t know about mercy. Writing a novel about characters discovering God’s mercy is likely to teach me a thing or two about it for myself–in fact, if I don’t learn anything while working on this book, I’ll venture to say that I’m doing it wrong. But as a starting point, for my novel and for year ahead, and not only for myself but for you as well:

Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed,
Because His compassions fail not.
They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
-Lamentations 3:22-23 (NKJV)

Happy New Year!

An earlier version of this post appeared with the title “New Year’s Day and a Schedule for Mercy.”

I write dual timeline novels from a Christian worldview. Interested? Learn more on my Books page!