As we begin another year this New Year’s Day, we are thankful for new beginnings! We bid farewell to 2025 with gratitude and thanksgiving, but we also embrace 2026 as a fresh start.
But what is new in this year?
As we begin again, we cannot always anticipate what will be new. When we begin to write a story on a blank piece of paper, we might have an ending in mind, but we never know where the story will take us until we start writing. Our resolutions need to keep this in mind. We do not need to assume where the year will lead as we begin!
In any beginning, we need to be mindful of God’s presence, so that we are listening for God’s wisdom and grace. We invite God to become a co-writer of our story. The plot and the events of our story benefit from God’s wisdom and grace. There will be conflict and resolution as well as twists and turns in the story. But we are do not write alone! We find assurance in this as we begin again.
As we imagine what might be new this year, we can learn from the past. God has a track record of grace, hope, and love! There is a precedent for God’s renewal, redemption, restoration! We can anticipate God doing a new thing because God has done new things in the past. We are not sure what they will be, but we can listen for them.
We already have meetings and appointments on our calendar for 2026. We can begin again by remaining open to what is not on the calendar—the friendships, the opportunities, the lessons, the gifts of grace. It might be on Committee Night. It could be at work. It might happen at a meeting. It could be in worship. We might encounter God’s grace in a new way!
We cannot always anticipate what will be new, but we can remain open to it. We give thanks for the new things of 2025 as we also anticipate what will be new in 2026.
-Tripp