New Year-New Day

As the first month of 2024 comes to an end, I’m realizing once again how quickly time moves, and I find myself each day anticipating the “new things” that God is doing. Just as I wait for sunshine and spring, I’m waiting and anticipating the movement of God in our lives. Isaiah 43:18-19 is a very popular verse around New Years, and it seems to be the go-to scripture to quote as each new year approaches. It talks about forgetting what’s behind and looking towards the future because God is doing a new thing. I love these verses because I like change and seeing God move… I remember having a conversation with my kids on New Years Eve, we weren’t excited for the new year; not for any reason, we just didn’t care and I realized why after remembering what Lamentations 3:22-23 says. Maybe we didn’t care so much about a new year because God gives us new days. Every day he is up to something, his mercies are given to us every morning, and his faithfulness meets us before we even wake up.

In 2011 I found myself going through a really rough season, and my mom gave me the best advice, so simple yet profound. She told me to take life one day at a time. Yep, that’s it. It was like God was saying this is how you do it. I will never forget how God got me through that year, and it was one day at a time. I couldn’t see it then, but every day I was moving closer to a new season. Winter is really hard for me; I like the sun and I like warmth. As I’m writing this it’s 30 degrees outside and I haven’t seen the sun shine in over a week, and some days I could cry. Welcome to the Midwest…But I know spring is coming, and that helps, it gives me hope, excitement for the future. With every day that passes we are one day closer to blooming flowers, budding trees, sun kissed skin and a warm breeze. Imagine if people got excited every day like it was the new year. Imagine if we hoped and anticipated the movement of God everyday like we anticipate the changing seasons.

Isaiah 43 talks about perceiving the new thing that God is doing. Sometimes we get so discouraged because every day looks the same. But God is telling us to look, he is doing something new. Hoping, believing, and walking with God is an everyday thing. Years and seasons are made of days. One day it will be a new year again, one day this season will shift into another, one day things will make sense, one day the dream will come true, and one day is all we need to try again. I just want to encourage you, if 2024 has started off bad or not the way you’d hoped, if dreams and goals have already crashed and burned, don’t despair, don’t be discouraged; today is a new day, and so is tomorrow, and every day after that. We get his mercies new every day and his faithfulness will not fail. I didn’t know when I would write again, but today God told me to begin one more time. He told me January 29th, not January 1st. Just because today looks one way, just because this year has been a certain way doesn’t mean tomorrow will look the same. You never know what God will accomplish in a moment, in a day.