As we end the year 2023, thank you for choosing to read these weekly devotions. I pray your hearts were blessed.
Often times when a new year is upon us, there may be a sense of excitement of the new possibilities. Or there may be a daunting sense of carrying some of the things we faced from one year into the next, because even as one year ends and we start a new one, our circumstances don’t magically change at midnight.
While we tend to use the verse from Isaiah 43:19a ‘See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?’ to represent the newness of the year; sometimes our newness does not happen on the first day of the first month of the year. Sometimes, it happens through culmination of small changes that it’s only when we look back we can see what God had been doing all along.
As we celebrate the end of the year, I encourage you to take a moment to pause and reflect: what new things happened for you? What were some positives from the year? What were some disappointments? How did God change your heart and perspective through some of these disappointments?
This year, I won’t only count my highs. I will also recount my lows and look for God’s love and presence in those difficult times. When I could do nothing else but cry, but, He wiped my tears and may even have brought laughter.
Will you join me in taking a few moments to pause and reflect on this year, before jumping into planning for next year? The act of pausing and reflecting might surprise you as you plan for the upcoming year.
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you that we have made it to the end of another year. I know many started the year, with grand plans and are no longer here. Thank you that you have seen it fit to keep us. Continue to be with us.