Relying on God Has to Begin All Over Again Every Day.

Friday, 24 April 2026C.S. Lewis - Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer

Illustration

Relying on God has to begin all over again every day.

Devotional

Showing up

Some mornings I sit down and know exactly what I want to share. The words come quickly and the whole thing just flows.

Other mornings are harder. I'm staring at a blank page, not sure what I have to offer, wondering if today is the day I've finally run out of things to say. This was one of those mornings.

Yesterday was a beach day with the family, which sounds nice until I tell you the rest of it. Traffic on the way there. Wind driving sand into everyone's eyes — one of mine is still swollen. Our beach tent got demolished. One of the kids knocked hot tea across my foot. We came home tired and a little broken, and this morning the last thing I wanted to do was sit down and write.

But I sat down anyway.

Because that's what it is. Every day, whether you feel like it or not, you have to show up again at the foot of the cross. The good days don't excuse you from today. The hard days don't either.

C.S. Lewis wrote: "The trouble is that relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done."

That's the whole thing. Not just writing. Not just devotionals. Relying on God. Every single day, from scratch, whether yesterday was easy or hard, whether you feel ready or not.

Some days it flows. Some days it doesn't. You come anyway.

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Prayer

Lord, relying on You has to begin all over again every day, and I'm learning that yesterday's trust doesn't automatically carry into today, that each morning requires fresh surrender.

I wish I could trust You once and be done with it, store up enough faith to last the week, rely on You so completely one day that the next day is already settled.

Teach me that daily reliance isn't failure to trust deeply enough but the rhythm You designed, that starting over each morning isn't weakness but how faith actually works.

Every day brings new challenges, new worries, new reasons to rely on myself instead of You, and every day I have to choose again to lean on You instead of my own understanding.

Help me make this daily beginning a practice not a burden, to greet each morning as another opportunity to choose reliance on You, to start fresh without frustration that I have to start again.

Remind me that manna came daily, that Your mercies are new every morning, that You built this rhythm of daily dependence into the way You relate to Your children.

Give me grace to begin again today, to rely on You fresh this morning as if I've never done it before, to bring today's worries to You instead of carrying yesterday's leftover trust.

Let me begin all over again today, relying on You with fresh faith, new surrender, present-tense trust that starts now and will start again tomorrow.

In Jesus' name,

Amen.

Journaling Prompts