New Year or another day?

Door to Opportunity

Is January 1^st of 2024 the beginning of a new year or is it only turning the page to another day? I have new calendars to hang and a planner to load up with appointments and opportunities. But tomorrow is both another day and the start of a new year. I’ll not wait until midnight to welcome the New Year, and when I awaken tomorrow it will be Monday, the start of a work week with one appointment already on my day planner. Friday is again designated as laundry day. On Saturday, January 6^th, I’ll pack up the Christmas décor because I like to wait until Epiphany. So what’s different in this first week of a new year?

Am I making more out of this than is necessary? I’m probably thinking too much, trying to find a reason for the start of newness in this winter season. I enjoy the changes of seasons, the rhythm of day and night, and the newness that each change brings. God is our perfect planner.

When I posed this question to my son-in-law Paul about “another day” or a “new year,” he answered with the possibility that God designed us to want closure and beginning anew, that we like and need to have a fresh start. So why not welcome and celebrate a New Year?

At the beginning of 2024, I can recognize and anticipate new opportunities amidst possible troubles and uncertainties. The new year will involve relationships being tested but completed with love and joy. Jesus is my Redeemer for each day I will face.

Facing the year with fear is not acceptable nor rewarding. Trust is the avenue on which I will walk daily. My practice is to give myself a word at the beginning of each new year. For 2024 it’s “Patient Endurance.” That couplet is repeated three times in the book of Revelation, chapters one and two when Jesus is writing to the seven churches: 1:9, 2:2, and 2:19. God has seen and knows the patient endurance of the churches. I pray that He sees that in me for the New Year.