"For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope." ~Jer 29:11~
One of my devotion books for 2010 is "Voices of the Faithful" by Beth Moore. It is written by over 300 missionaries across the world, telling only a small part of their story. The introduction to this book is powerful. It's about new starts. I've paraphrased some of it for you below...
You and I need new starts. God fashioned us to need them. Whether we need them because we find our self cycling back to a pit of sin, or we have been attacked by satan while doing God's will, we NEED new starts regardless. God knew we would.
God Himself came up with an annual New Year's Day when He ordered creation and gave the sun and moon their instructions (Gen 1:14). Think of how much we view segments of time in years. Here in January, as we enter a new year, I wonder what kind of year 2009 was for you? Were you glad to see it go? Did you bid it good riddance? Or was it a year of dreams come true and intangible prosperity? Did you conclude it defeated? Or simply exhausted? One way or the other, aren't you glad you have a new start? Isn't God brilliant?
God didn't think an annual new start was nearly enough. He who created the human psyche also compartmentalized those hundreds of days into 12 months. Every month we get another first. But 12 new starts were not enough, either. The very first verses of Scripture unfold a seven-day period of time we call a week. Think how we look forward to a "weekend" and a subsequent new beginning on Sunday.
Fifty-two new beginnings a year sounds like plenty, doesn't it? Ah, but not to God. He who configured our needy souls ordained the sun to rise every single morning and set every single evening. A curtain of darkness falls systematically on the scene of every single day, calling it history. Some days are just so bad, they don't get better, they just have to end and give us a chance to start a new one tomorrow morning. We can fall into the bed as night falls, pull the covers over our head and sleep off the exhaustion of the day. The next morning, the sun rises, just as God promised it would, and we can be renewed and ready to go at life once again. There are times I couldn't have waited for seven days for another new start. I need a new one that would come in only hours.
The Bible says that God gives us new mercies every morning (Lam 3:23). The first of those mercies is the new morning itself. Here we are, you and I, making a new start. A new year. Twelve new months. Fifty-two new weeks. And 365 glorious new days. What might make this one a little different from last year? I'm hoping a deliberately Christ-centered life. Once again...and not a moment too soon, the old has passed away. Behold, new things have come. ~Beth Moore~
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new." ~II Corinth 5:17~
