My advent devotional was just about complete, only a few more lines to add. Its submission was one day overdue but somehow what I had written didn’t seem quite right. Instead, the words and music of a certain hymn kept pulsing through my head, "This Is A Day of New Beginnings". I threw out what I had first written and started again. I hope these words resonate with you as they did for me, not just in the first few days of the New Year but each and every new day.
This is a day of new beginnings,
Time to remember and move on,
Time to believe what love is bringing,
Laying to rest the pain that's gone.
We can only learn from past mistakes. Dwelling on them will not help us to do better in the present nor prepare for the future, "time to remember and move on".
For by the life and death of Jesus,
God's mighty Spirit, now as then,
Can make for us a world of difference,
As faith and hope are born again.
Then let us, with the Spirit's daring,
Step from the past and leave behind
Our disappointment, guilt, and grieving,
Seeking new paths, and sure to find.
The tentacles of discouragement and disappointment can hold us back from living the Christian life to its fullest. As followers of Jesus "God's mighty Spirit...can make...a world of difference" so that we can "leave behind our disappointment" and seek "new paths".
Christ is alive, and goes before us
To show and share what love can do.
This is a day of new beginnings,
Our God is making all things new.
We step into this New Year knowing that Christ goes before us to help us "show and share what love can do" for everyone we meet. Truly "this is a day of new beginnings" and "God is making all things new". What wonderful promises for the year of our Lord 2007.
Jean Dean
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