Goodbye! Hello!  Devotional #9

            Every New Years Eve is a day to say “goodbye” to another year and wait for the moment the clock strikes midnight to say “hello” to a New Year.  Every year we do this.  Every year we’re ready to leave the past behind and hope that all that will come in the New Year is as good or better than the year we’re leaving behind.  There’s always a list of what we’re thankful happened to us in the current year and a list of what we wished never happened.  There’s a list of things we’d love to have happen to us in the New Year and things we pray will never happen to us.  I find this intriguing.  We do this every year…year in…year out.  No one tells us to do this.  It’s instinctive.  It’s somehow engrained in our D.N.A.  The desire to let go of the old and to desire something new is human nature, isn’t it?  I know it is for me.

            Every year, as far as I can remember I have always looked forward to ending the current year and look to the New Year that’s starting on the next day with a newfound hope.  It is as if I’m standing on the edge and am ready to jump…ready to jump into the new…ready to let go of what has exhausted me, of experiences that have shaken me to the core and have changed me forever.  Ready to leave behind in what is now history all that angered me or to put into practice what had been awakened in me, new dreams, new heights that need to be climbed because its what the Lord is calling me to do. 

The New Year means an opportunity to take the hand of hope being extended to us by Him. Psalm 40:29 says, “He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.  Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength.  They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”

            There is nothing in this world, in my “world” or in your “world,” that God doesn’t know of.  Whatever happened that we may or may not be comfortable to share with others is of course no shock to Him because He already knows everything.  There is nothing we can hide from Him.  Maybe we can hide things from everyone else but not from Him.  So, why hide anything at all?  Isn’t it better to rest in knowing that He already knows all we’ve done and just come clean and therefore start the New Year with a clean slate?  Be honest and confess all that is hidden in the deepest corners of the mind and heart and start the New Year fresh.

One of my end-of-the-year routines is to sit down with God and have intimacy with Him.  I covet my prayer time especially on the last day of the year.  I review my year with Him.  I review the good, the bad and yes, the ugly with Him.  I pray for the year that’s about to start, for His guidance to be crystal clear to me and the willingness and courage to live in obedience.  In Mathew 6:6-8 Jesus said, “...pray to your Father, who is unseen.  Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.  And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.  Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”  My dear friend the Lord knows and desires what is best for us in this New Year and always.  Jeremiah 29:11 says, ‘“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”’  

As we start this New Year I pray that we all may have a new beginning.  That we all may experience all that God has for us each and every single day with His love, His courage, His passion, His peace, His strength, His grace, His mercy and His patience!  May this New Year be better than the last for you my dear friend and for me, spiritually, emotionally and physically.

 

            Happy New Year my friend, God bless you and thank you for reading this devotional.