QUIET WATERS SPIRIT

Changes For Today

WRITER: RICK REED

Solomon, considered by many to be the wisest man who ever lived, wrote, “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.” Was he confessing his lack of attaining prior New Year’s resolutions?

Could that describe you? Is it same old same old every New Year?

Solomon added, “Is there a thing of which it is said, ‘See, this is new’? It has been already in the ages before us.”

He might be talking of broken resolutions or character traits or more honestly, continual sins. We all have sins that hound us, that nip at our heels. And we vow every January 1st to change them.

Not the most encouraging way to begin a new year is it? How many embrace the hope of the New Year only to succumb to its broken promises soon after?

Putting too much emphasis on the New Year can be just as harmful as spending too much time dwelling on the past. We only have today. We can’t change yesterday, and we aren’t promised tomorrow. Giving too much time to either is wasteful. “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalm 118:24

My point isn’t avoiding resolutions. It is don’t wait until a new year. We don’t need to wait for new things. We have plenty of new things to rejoice and be glad in — today. God told us in Isaiah 43:18–19: “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” We can spend too much time remembering old things — both good and bad.

Yes, we need to remember what God has done for us as we move forward, not backward.

In Isaiah 62:2-4, God told us, “And you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give. You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate, but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land Married.”

Why wait until the New Year or even tomorrow; God’s love and mercy is new today — and every day. Jeremiah wrote in Lamentations 3:21–24: “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him.’”

God equips us. We can’t change without His Spirit. He told us in Ezekiel 36:26–29: “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.”

As Paul reminded us in 2 Corinthians 6:2: “I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.”

Have a truly happy New Year.