This is the day that the Lord has made.  I will rejoice and be glad!  Not only is this another day, but it is now another calendar year.  Though a day is as a thousand years to God, our temporal lives are measured out in minutes and hours; days and weeks; months and years.  None of us knows how much of that we have.  We only know that once gone we can never get it back.  But I’m glad God gives us opportunities to start over.  And the start of a new calendar year is one of those opportunities.

We should always use our time wisely, and I know that I’ve squandered way too much of it.   It just seems to get away from me.  And when it’s not getting away from me, I find myself running head long time and again smack dab into Paul’s saying that the things I want to do I don’t do and the things I don’t want to do, that I do.  Who can deliver me from this?  Who indeed!  I’d like to think it is God, alone, but I suspect this is one of those areas where I have to work out my own salvation (in conjunction with God, of course).

If you’re anything like me, you probably have several projects or areas of your life that have been languishing, or just outright falling apart—places where there are just fits and starts with no lasting progress; areas where you’d like to be pushing the “continue” or “finish” button.  I know I do.  But for what it’s worth, a new year offers all of us the opportunity to not only continue or finish the things that are a part of the race set before us, but also to be able to push that all-important “restart” button and not give up on conquering the things that trip us up.

This is the start of 2019.  May we all have a fruitful, productive and happy new year!