.....refueling

It is of the LORD's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. — Lamentations 3:22-23

No aircraft carries a lifetime supply of fuel. Even long-haul planes built to cross oceans still land, refuel, and take off again for the next leg — because yesterday's full tank doesn't fly today's flight. This is such a basic fact of aviation that no pilot resents it. Nobody stands on the tarmac frustrated that they have to refuel *again*. It's simply how flight works: you draw what you need for this leg, and you come back for more before the next one.

Grace works the same way, and it's easy to forget that. We tend to want grace the way we'd want a fuel tank the size of the ocean — filled once, sealed shut, never needing another pass by the pump. But that's not the promise God actually makes. Lamentations puts it with startling honesty: God's compassions are new *every morning* Lamentations 3:22-23 — not stockpiled from last week, not rationed from a reserve you're expected to make last a lifetime on your own strength. Jesus told His disciples plainly where the fuel line actually runs: "I am the vine, ye are the branches... for without me ye can do nothing" John 15:5. Cut from the vine, even the strongest branch is just dead weight with yesterday's fuel already burned off.

This is also why Paul didn't ask God to remove his thorn once and be done with needing anything further. He asked, and the answer he got was present tense, not stockpiled: "My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness" 2 Corinthians 12:9. Sufficient — not "was," not "will eventually be." Right now, for this leg of the flight, sufficient.

Ellen White described this same rhythm as the ordinary shape of the Christian life, not a special arrangement for hard seasons only:  "We are to keep close to the Source of our strength day by day." — Ellen G. White, *Our High Calling*, reading for April 29

She doesn't say: fill up once and coast. She says *day by day* — the same unremarkable, repeated action a ground crew performs before every single flight, whether the weather is calm or the forecast is rough. If your gauge is reading low today, that's not a sign grace has run out or forgotten you. It's just the ordinary reading before a scheduled stop at the pump — the same stop that's always been part of the plan, since the day you first believed and were kept by grace through faith in Christ crucified.

So don't try to fly today on a tank you filled last month, or last year, or the day you first gave your heart to Jesus. Pull up to the pump again. He has never once run dry, and He has never once turned a plane away for needing to refuel again.

Father, thank You that Your grace isn't something I stockpile once and ration for the rest of my life. Thank You that Your mercies are new again this morning. Fill what's empty in me today, for today's flight, and remind me tomorrow's supply will be waiting when tomorrow comes. In Jesus' name