Happy New Beginnings

I couldn’t say it any better. So here’s a thought provoking message from the past. Written some years ago by a great mind who left this world long before we could even fathom the space we’re in today.

But as we welcome this new year, let us remember it’s really a new beginning. Like every day, it’s a gift given to us to grow and move forward in this space between life and death.

Henri Nouwen wrote, “We must learn to live each day, each hour, yes, each minute as a new beginning, as a unique opportunity to make everything new. Imagine that we could live each moment as a moment pregnant with new life. Imagine that we could live each day as a day full of promises. Imagine that we could walk through the new year always listening to the voice saying to us: “I have a gift for you and can’t wait for you to see it!” Imagine.

“Is it possible that our imagination can lead us to the truth of our lives? Yes, it can! The problem is that we allow our past, which becomes longer and longer each year, to say to us: “You know it all; you have seen it all, be realistic; the future will just be a repeat of the past. Try to survive it as best you can.” There are many cunning foxes jumping on our shoulders and whispering in our ears the great lie: “There is nothing new under the sun... don’t let yourself be fooled.”

“When we listen to these foxes, they eventually prove themselves right: our new year, our new day, our new hour become flat, boring, dull, and without anything new.

“So what are we to do? First, we must send the foxes back to where they belong: in their foxholes. And then we must open our minds and our hearts to the voice that resounds through the valleys and hills of our life saying: “Let me show you where I live among my people. My name is ‘God-with-you.’ I will wipe all the tears from your eyes; there will be no more death, and no more mourning or sadness. The world of the past has gone” (Revelation 21:2–5).”

A name like no other. God-with-you. God in your midst. God in the space between you and me. God in the space between here and there. God in the space between past and present. Today, I invite you to welcome God in to the space of this New Year. Enter that space knowing it was a gift given to you. Today is a gift. Tomorrow will be one too, just like yesterday was. There is nothing you can do to claim this space as your own. Because God is there with you.  

Now, let’s enter that space and make it holy by living into something new!