God doesn’t keep repeating Himself. That’s SUCH a good thing. He doesn’t say what I would say to me, “If I’ve told you once I’ve told you a thousand times ___________.”  Nope. He finds a new way to put what He needs to keep telling me over and over again. That is grace.

Because the truth is, when we keep hearing the same thing, seeing the same thing, tasting the same thing, doing the same thing, it not only gets old but we don’t pay attention any more. We do it by rote. Pattern may be necessary to accomplish a lot of life, but not our life for God. God is always making us new. He is new every morning.

This is hard on me because I wake up every morning the same old me. With all the same faults, same tendencies, making the same errors. I’m aware of this because I’m, well, living in my body. But God, in His infinite patience, says again as if for the first time, “My child, this is who I am. I am meeting you here.”

And on the mornings/days when I get that, really, when I can enter that, even my patterns are not the same. Sure, I am doing many of the same things – but doing it feels different. The patterns fall into the backdrop and what peeks out is the newness. A new approach. A new insight. A new idea.

God knows we need our sameness. Our patterns, our disciplines, our regular cup of coffee (oh my, yes) and along with these He knows we cling both to helpful patterns and the not so helpful ones. But  when we enter the I am or, perhaps invite the I am in, somehow the mere act seems to draw back a curtain. Perhaps God just injects a bit of divine creativity.

At that moment my marking time, which is by the way movement, makes some forward progress. Perhaps a bit of wind in my face is just what I need to emerge from the pattern – which has become rote: one arm, one leg, other arm, other leg. Perhaps what I need is a bit of lean. And something, Someone, to lean against.

Forward motion. That would probably sound something like, “My child, this is who I am. Starting from where we left off yesterday, let’s step into this.” Don’t be afraid. Today, you are new, but I am ever the same.