Late last night, just before bed, I realized that I forgot to check my pedometer to see how many steps I walked yesterday. When I picked it up and pressed the button, it said “0.0.”I knew I walked more than 0 steps! It took me a second to realize that it was 12:04am, so everything I did registered as yesterday’s activity.

I’ve been reading Exodus lately and I noticed that just before the Hebrew people leave Egypt, God tells them, “From now on, this month will be the first month of the year for you” (Exodus 12:2). The Lord was restarting the clock for them. Their old life of slavery was over and a new life as God’s chosen people was beginning.

My experience with my pedometer reminded me of the fact that every day is a new beginning. I don’t have to carry around my past. One of my favorite verses says,

“The faithful love of the Lord never ends!
His mercies never cease.
Great is his faithfulness;
his mercies begin afresh each morning.”

Lamentations 3:22-23

No matter what happened yesterday, today is a different day. The struggles, temptations, and failures I had yesterday belong to yesterday. God’s forgiveness removes my sins as far as the East is from the West (Psalm 103:12). The mercy of a clean slate is new today.

The victories I want to drag forward from yesterday remain there. I want to wrap myself in what I did in the past instead of grabbing ahold of the fact that today is another day where God is working in my life. I can have all new joy and triumph in today because God is working in me, giving me the desire and the power to do what pleases him (Philippians 2:13). The mercy of being re-created in Jesus is new today.

The clock resets every day because of God’s mercy.

God, I pray that you would give me the courage to leave the past behind me. I pray that I would accept your forgiveness and let go of yesterday’s failures. Help me to embrace your work in my life so that I might celebrate new mercies every day. Amen.

Happy Monday!