What is it about the first of the year that has a sense of a fresh start, a new beginning, and a clean slate about it?
Yes, we are a few days into the year, and some of the newness has worn off. Many of you have already thrown the proverbial “New Year’s resolutions” out the window since you have not just broken but shattered them.
Friends, remember that not only are we still on the leading edge of a new year, but we know, follow, and love a Savior who has promised that all things in our lives can be new. Not only calendars, months, weeks, sunrises, but everything. At various points in the New Testament, we are called a new creation or a new self. We are encouraged to accept a new covenant, to follow a new command, and to be made new.
I have always enjoyed the freshness of the New Year. I like the new beginning of a Bible reading plan, the blank pages in a new journal, the challenges I place before myself at the beginning of a year. Yes, I revisit the hopes and dreams I had the previous year and celebrate victories while bemoaning the places where I fell short.
But the great good news I celebrate is that I am not on this journey alone. No, the One who claimed me in the waters of baptism, who called me as His own, who breathes the breath of life into me every day has promised to make everything—achy knees, ringing ears, floaters in my eyes, even my aspirations—new.
How? I don’t know. All I know is that I must walk with Him to see it so!