January 2020

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Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.
Isaiah 43: 18-19


In the Beginning. . . .

What are your favorite things about a new year? I love filling in the birthdays on the new calendar with the ages of my children and grandchildren. Their ages are usually followed by exclamation points because I just can't help but marvel at how fast the years have flown since each was born. What? How can _____ be a year old already? Or ten or 30? Or more! But yet, of course, it's true. I've stopped filling in my own age on the calendar because, well, there isn't room in that little square for enough exclamation points!

Another of my favorite things about the new year is starting over again in the book of Genesis in The One Year Bible, which of course, starts with the beginning of all things related to this Earth and its inhabitants, Creation. The words, In the beginning God created. . . . never fail to stir feelings of awe and wonder at the mysteries only hinted at in the Genesis account. There are depths, worlds, universes in every verse. This year, my goal is to read the Bible more slowly, and allow myself more time to ponder, more time to listen. Jesus comforted the disciples with this promise:

But the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you (John 14:26).

This is the same Spirit (nefesh in Hebrew) that hovered over the face of the waters at Creation (Genesis 1:2).Why wouldn't we make time to avail ourselves of that source from which to learn?

Jesus followed that promise with this one:

Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid (vs. 27).

Peace. Who doesn't want that in the new year, the new decade in our troubled and troubling times? Does the peace Jesus promises mean that we will live in peaceful times and circumstances? I wish. But no. Jesus said we will have trouble in this world. Will. Not "might." Not "probably." Will.

Here's another promise Jesus made that we can take with us like treasure into the new year, the new decade:

These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have trouble; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world (John 16:33).

My New Year's prayer for my family and friends and myself is as simple as it is age-old�"that we would all grow in our ability to listen and learn and to rest in the comforting peace of His presence.

 

Daye Phillippo

January 2020