“O My, ‘05 Is Gone”
Ah, another year! The old one is gone and a new one has arrived. New Year’s Day is pretty much like yesterday or tomorrow. It is only one ordinary, twentyfour hour period. Our calendar, however, has made this moment of time a special one. It establishes a brand new interval. It is the beginning of a fresh 365 day cycle.
We have used New Year’s Day as a stepping-stone into a different future, as a new start towards a goal we would love to achieve. Most have used it as a “fantasy” goal to lose weight or begin some cardiovascular exercise which would trim them up. Rarely do we use New Year’s Day to make decisions about our spiritual life or the development of a regimen which would deepen our relationship with God.
That is a possibility, however. The early church used the Second Coming of Jesus as an impetus for change, or the end of the world as a conflagration possibility which stirred evangelism. Those “tools” no longer work. (Even though books and films dealing with those images are legion.) A person can use any date, any time as a springboard into a brighter and more daring future. Whatever it takes to awaken us from our sleep and drive us toward “that for which we were created” is a New Year. We can stop pacing and start living. Instead, we can climb more mountains, eat more ice cream, go barefoot more often, swim more rivers, watch more sunsets, laugh more, cry less. Live life as we go along. God has created us for such a destiny. It is the way we can love God and rejoice in God. Those are God’s gifts.
Jim
Posted by Mark McNabb at January 3, 2006 10:25 AM