I have grown to appreciate "do overs": to face the recognition that my first attempt was either totally wrong or ill-advised - and re-engage to start again and try to get it right.
I also love New Beginnings: a new day, a new week, a new month - and especially, a new year. Each provides an opportunity for "starting over", and that is especially true with a fresh New Year. What will it bring? What new pages will be written in our lives and our personal histories, as well as the history-in-the-making of our world. It's exciting - and creates some trepidation! But thank God, he takes away fear and invites us to lay our burdens and cares on him - because he cares for us.
Today - being the eighth day of Christmas would mean this is also the day we acknowledge the naming of Jesus. That was part of the circumcision ceremony that was prescribed to occur 8 days after birth.
So, Jesus' parents went to the temple as was the Jewish custom, to have Jesus circumcised and to give him the name the angel had told them: Yeshua, which means 'salvation'.
And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus (actually Yeshua), the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. (Luke 2:21 ESV)
Luke 2:22-38 tells the story of that event. How Simeon had been told by God that he would not die until he saw the Lord's Christ, i.e., God's Messiah. How Anna, the prophetess came at that very hour and she also witnessed to seeing the Messiah.
Yeshua's birth was a New Beginning for our world.
2024 is a new beginning for us. What will I do with it? Will I honor my commitment for daily Bible reading and prayer? Will I seek reconciliation? Will I seek to be the person God create me to be? Will I both seek and follow His will, not mine? Will I be intentional about making the most of the life God has given me? Will I make a difference? We shall see!
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