The Happiness of New

I woke up on New Year’s Day to sunshine. That alone, and the fact that I didn’t have to go to work, made me wake up happy. Besides that, waking up to something called new is happy too.

 

While every day is a new day, one with no mistakes in it yet (as Anne of Green Gables says), there’s something different about the start of a new year. A bigger page is being turned. Another chapter, or even another book, of life is beginning. A larger chunk of the past is finished.

 

I think of each new year as unscripted, an opportunity to consider that things just might break outside the box of my present reality. I often think in terms of being open to change I can’t control and setting goals that I can control.

 

But I think there’s a better way to think about it. I love the way spiritual writer Richard J. Foster puts it in his book, Celebration of Discipline: “Goals are discovered, not made. God delights in showing us exciting new alternatives for the future.”

 

Goals are discovered. That’s an even happier prospect than making goals in keeping with dreams; it means that when we take time to seek and listen to the Lord about our lives, He can give us new dreams. Dreams that He dreamed for us long before we were even born.

 

I think part of the process of discovering the new in the new year is balancing responsibility with faith. What part of my destiny requires me to do something, and what part requires me to simply wait?

 

All of it requires trust in the one who created me in the first place, and He is always ready to do something new. And His new, which may not always be what we expect, is always something to be excited about.

 

So here’s to waking up to the sunniness of new as we discover the goals God has for us this year.

 

 

One Response to “ “The Happiness of New”

  1. aimee says:

    yes. and amen!

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