From April: New Beginnings

I love new beginnings. There is so much possibility to starting a new semester. I always thought that maybe, just maybe, I would do the reading for all my classes, or work out a couple times a week. (For four years, neither of those things happened.) But a part of me also detests the beginning of the year because I feel as though I merely participate in a cultural ritual of setting unrealistic goals I never intend to keep.

In 2 Corinthians 5:17, the Bible says, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" What I love about this verse is that it's not talking about goal-setting, but about transformation. Like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. Something ordinary becoming glorious. We are changed on a daily basis through a friendship with Jesus. And every day we spend time with Him, transformation happens within us. Maybe that time hasn't happened in a while. Who cares if it's not the first day of the year or the semester, or even the first part of the day? Take time now to pick up a Bible and start talking to Him. Whatever is in your past--guilt, pain, failure--let it go and become the new creation that you are in Christ.