Joyful expectation.
What will the New Year hold?
With the turn of the calendar,
a clean slate.
A fresh start.
What will I do differently?
Better?
Oh the hope of a New Year! How we want that excitement and those resolutions to last.
How, deep down, we may worry, even now, on this first day of a fresh new year… if our own determination will be enough to help us follow through with the goals we may have set for ourselves.
I know me.
I know I will eventually reach for that piece of chocolate cake no matter how much I tell myself I’m not going to do it.
And like the Apostle Paul, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” (Rom 7:15)
Yes, the things I want to do,
I do not do,
and the things I don’t want to do,
I often do.
For like Paul, you and I still have a flesh nature.
The prophet, Jeremiah, also understood and famously “lamented” and wrote a mournful book about the circumstances and struggles of man called Lamentations.
As he wrote these words, his city, Jerusalem, lay besieged and his people were rejecting God.
The circumstances were terrible and the people had failed to be faithful.
But then, in the middle of the lamenting, Jeremiah says, “Therefore I have hope” (Lam 3:21).
Yes, hope!!!
He spells out the REASON WE CAN STILL HAVE HOPE when he writes the familiar words,” Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are NEW EVERY MORNING”! (Lam 3:22-23)
Inspired by God, the Old Testament prophet goes on to tell us where this hope can be found EVERY SINGLE DAY!
Every new morning!!
We, who know the Lord, get a fresh start every day and not just once a year on New Years Day!!
(Oh, doesn’t this make you want to praise the Lord!)
And this fresh start, this unending river of mercy is not because we have earned it, or resolved to do better and fix ourselves. It isn’t even because of our own faithfulness …but God’s!
“Great is Your faithfulness.” (Lam 3:23)
Our God IS the faithful One!
HE always keeps His promises.
Always!!
The passage goes on to say, what we need to remember each day of the new year, “”The Lord is my portion”, says my soul. “Therefore I hope in Him!”(Lam 3:23-24)
This New Years Day, and every day, and with every situation and struggle we face this year, we can hope in God!
And we can trust the old prophets‘ words, “The LORD is good to those who wait for Him. To the soul who seeks Him” (Lam 3:25)
Oh friend, in all we hope for with the dawning of this new year, may we place our hope squarely in the One whose mercies are new every morning! (Not ourselves,or our circumstances).
May we seek Him above all and find His goodness satisfies our souls like nothing else ever will!
Happy New Year friends!!
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Join us Monday on this page to begin our study on Colossians! Let’s seek the Lord together and be filled with hope!
Kim Jaggers Ministry 