Ahhhh!

Ahhhh...a new year. What a great feeling to start new calendars! Throw those old ones out! Think of them as symbols of things past. I love sunny January with its crisp air that brings a feeling of new hope--hope that I can get organized and maybe keep up this year and hope that I will reach those goals, read those books, accomplish those tasks! I'll make those phone calls, write those letters, organize those snapshots! I'll get my priorities in order, pray more, study my Bible as never before! Somewhere in the back of my brain lodges the nagging truth that I won't be able to do it all again this year, but that doesn't discourage me. I think it is a healthy thing to have hope, to have goals. Perhaps this is how the Apostle Paul felt when he penned these immortal words in Philippians 3:13 and 14, "Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended (arrived): but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."

Since the creation, time has been organized into segments--days, months, seasons, years, and yes, even millennia! I think God knew that we would need to start over from time to time. Each new year is a time to realize that we haven't arrived, to look back (briefly), try to learn from our mistakes, and then forget those failures. Start over, reach forth, and press on!