A Fresh Start

I finally have found someone else that likes Mondays!

I saw a Facebook status of a former student of mine who asked "Is it weired that Monday is my favorite day?" I have yet to reply to his posting, but I intend to encourage him with words from an equally weired perspective. I love Mondays.

I'm sure it has something to do with being a pastor and that Sunday is such a busy, exhausting, and climatic day. The majority of my week is working toward Sunday, so what Monday represents is a new start to a new goal; the following Sunday.

My Monday morning routine once I hit the office is filing away the clutter of paper that gets dropped on my desk in between and following Sunday services. After checking emails and answering those that need to be answered right away, I pull out my calendar and a pad and begin a "to do" list for the coming week. Often, by noon or so on Monday, the rest of the week is fully booked. What were nearly blank squares on my calendar are now filled with times and names. And with that, I'm off and running toward Sunday again, with the knowledge that by next Monday it will all begin again.

But what I've come to relish is the fresh start. The "clean slate" feel of Mondays. I have many times come before the Lord on Monday mornings with a simple request: "What do you want to show me in this new week? What would you have me to do in this new week? What do you want me to say when your people gather at the close of this week and the beginning of the next?"

Perhaps for you Mondays are not so sweet. Maybe they are filled with agony of another week before you. Mondays, for some, are filled with regrets from the previous weekend. Words said carelessly; actions pursued without adquate forethought. For some, Monday is a "mop up" day from the "spills" of the weekend.

May I begin your week (if you are indeed reading this on Monday) with a reminder from the book of Lamentations? Even the writer (who we think is probably Jeremiah) was having what many would see as a "Monday" type of experience. In chapter 3, beginning with verse 19, he writes:

I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

So not only on Mondays, but the rest of the week, freshness and newness is yours because of the Lord's great love. Even in the midst of a downcast soul (like Jeremiah) it takes but "calling to mind" the compassion of the Lord to be renewed in his faithfulness. So, happy Monday!