NEW YEAR: NEW DEVOTIONAL. WHY NOT "PORTALS TO HEAVEN" devotional in book form: Buy it on our store page: https://www.sonrisen.com/shop
New Year’s has the earmark of a new beginning like a new day. It portends second chances and new perspectives.
It’s a portal of “vision” like when waking up to a new morning…rubbing the sleepy seeds out of the eyes and squinting a bit…even splashing some cold water on the face.
Each sunrise is a micro-example of the new year. We may start off groggy. Instead of facing 24 hours ahead, we have 12 months to look toward. That’s enough to make anybody trip over his slippers getting out of bed.
New Year’s is one of both promise and musing. We can pray. We can be positive thinkers. But one thing New Year’s Day cannot do is bring certainty.
There will always something on the horizon that simultaneously brings expectation and perhaps a touch of anxiety. Juxtaposition is one of the best implements in God’s tool chest.
So what are the sleepy seeds of the new year? What vision is just a little bit blurry? Any one of us could be seeing with eyes of ambivalence. Or, it could be just the opposite. We might be more like kids who wake up on Christmas morning. We don’t care if there are sleepy seeds tugging at our eyelids. The only thing we can see is the prospect of opening presents left by God. Our talents, station in life, potential, relationships and such seemed to be wrapped so invitingly.
Whichever way we see January 1, can we use this annual wake-up call to overlay each sunrise?
PORTAL TO HEAVEN: The same sense of thankfulness, urgency, expectation and promise of time-as-a-gift that the new year brings can be brought to the saying of grace at every breakfast table.
Each day is God’s gift…SEE, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?…Pay careful attention, then, to how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.…There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.
Ecclesiastes 9:9 (TM), Isaiah 43:19 (NIV), Ephesians 5:15-17 (BSB), Ecclesiastes 3:1