What is so appealing about a new day, a new year? For me it is the opportunity to have a fresh start. Maybe you’re like me and occasionally have a day (week, month, or even year) you wish had gone differently. You go home. You fume. You beat yourself up. You think about how you can do better in the future and then you resolve to start fresh the next day. It may just be me but I find it comforting that every day is a new day.
That is true in view of our productivity at work, our home lives, our parenting choices, and our financial decisions; but it is particularly true in view of our relationship with God. With God every day is a new day. It makes no difference what mistakes we made, what words we said, what we failed to do; as a child of God each day represents a new opportunity to make things right.
But that is not an attribute of man’s goodness of inherent righteousness. It can only be attributed to God’s matchless grace and mercy. We serve a second chance God. One who is always ready, willing, and able to forgive His children and receive them back into His eternal fold (Luke 15:11-32; 2 Peter 3:9).
Consider this, not only in view of each new day. Think about it in view of what this new year will bring. Set some goals. Make some meaningful resolutions. But don’t allow them to casually fall to the wayside over the first few weeks. Write them down. Remind yourself of them often. Don’t just make a resolution. Truly resolve to do some things that will bring an eternal difference in your life.
As Jeremiah experienced the heartache and gut-wrenching emotions of seeing his city destroyed and his people marched off to captivity he postponed his grief with the realization that even in the midst of that great difficulty that there was still hope. In fact, he said “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). As meaningful as those words were then they should be even more so to us now. With God every day truly is a new day.
-Andy Brewer