Monday February 5, 2024

As we begin our journey through this NEW YEAR 2024 living in God's daily NEW MERCIES, I invite you to wander with me in pictures through one of Cartagena, Colombia's most fascinating neighborhoods: Getsemaní. Here, artsy San Juan Street.

NEW YEAR, NEW MERCIES: DAY 6

... I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. ~Philippians 4:11

Sin does two very significant things to us all. First, it causes us all to insert ourselves into the center of our worlds... In our self-focus, we are all too motivated by our wants, our needs, and our feelings, and because we are, we tend to be more aware of what we don’t have than of the many wonderful blessings that we have been given…

There is a second thing of equal significance that sin does to us. It causes us to look horizontally for what can only ever be found vertically. So we look to creation for life, hope, peace, rest, contentment, identity, meaning and purpose, inner peace, and motivation to continue. The problem is that nothing in creation can give you these things. Creation was never designed to satisfy your heart. Creation was made to be one big finger pointing you to the One who alone has the ability to satisfy your heart…

“Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Psalm 73:25–26). These are the words of a man who learned the secret to contentment…

Here is one of the most beautiful fruits of grace—a heart that is content, more given to worship than demand and more given to the joy of gratitude than the anxiety of want.

Thank You God, that I was created so that my heart could and would rest only in You. Thank You for teaching me to be content at all times and in all circumstances, and thus to celebrate Your grace in my life.