This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you. Exodus 12:2

 I just wanted the year to be over. The struggles were great, the obstacles many and I felt utterly defeated.

I prayed and thanked the Lord for His blessings throughout the year but I also thanked Him that the year was going to end and I humbly asked Him for a better new year.

And then the Lord reminded me of this passage of scripture in Philippians:

Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:13-14

I didn’t have to stay stuck in the past of failures and setbacks. I had plenty to look forward to in Christ Jesus and I was determined to make this a better new year!

I experienced several of those hard years but God was faithful and guided me through each one with His promises and taught me many valuable lessons.

There have also been many amazing, great years and I am grateful for God’s goodness in each one.

What is so refreshing to think about is that the Lord also likes new things:

Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert. Isaiah 43:18-19

And we certainly don’t have to wait until January 1^st to have a “fresh” start because God’s mercies are new every morning:

 It is of the Lord‘s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22-23

Best of all, because we live for Him, all things are become new:

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. 2 Corinthians 5:17

Happy New Year!