“What an a*#.”
I uttered while on a prayer walk this morning. Immediately prior to the recipient of said expletive running me off the road, I was enjoying a rare moment of deep, profound, clear-headed, intimate prayer. As I journeyed out of the icy ditch, I realized the irony and hypocrisy of the situation…
I called someone a profanity, while praying.
That embarrassing incident reminded me of something that happens every year around this time.
I love a fresh start. I love new journals, workbooks, and clean slates. I love the hope and resolve of the untainted, especially late in December.
I love the New Year.
I want to eat better, exercise more, and live more intentionally. And because I learn best through the egregious and the extreme, I ask myself every December, “If I were to die tomorrow, what would I wish I’d done differently today?” I assess where I’m unsatisfied. I develop concrete, measurable ways to make change to ensure the New Year ends with less regret than the year before.
But like my passionate, honest, and initially-well-intended-prayers this morning – tainted by my profane mind and mouth – my New Year’s resolves often take a turn, die, or worse… Sometimes they become the exact opposite of the passionate, honest, and initially-well-intended resolution they started out to be.
But today, as my prayer walk morphed into the walk of shame, one of my favorite verses popped into my low hanging head:
“His mercies are new every morning.”
As I repented and raised my head with humble gratitude for His new mercy, I was reminded that the gift of “new” isn’t reserved for blank notebooks, Mondays, or January 1st. Thanks to Christ, new is available to me, and to you,
Every day, every morning, and with every mistake.
#theReasonfortheseason #merrychristmas #happyNewyear