Last day of 2011. I'm in Houston, TX to attend the Generation of Youth for Christ 2011 convention. Somehow, in all the bustle from hotels to meetings, from meetings to meals, from meals to more meetings, it occurs to me that I haven't updated my blog in months and in a couple days...tomorrow...today...this is the last day I can do it this year.
2011. I've never been so glad to see a year end. There is no way to over-emphasize how drastically I have come to loathe the year 2011. Many times I've said I would trade this year in on any other year in the book and not look back; there is nothing to make this year worth the time.
Yet here we are at last; having survived 2011, now we face 2012. I'm bringing it in at a Christian youth conference that stimulates a lot of thought and reflection, and I'm sure, no matter where you are, the realization that one chapter in time is closing and another is opening will give you pause to contemplate as well. We all like to think of it that way--an ending and a beginning; wrapping up the previous and starting fresh. Really, though, no year stands completely alone, unattached on either end, with a stark beginning and finish. It invariably borrows from the previous year some jagged attachments and loans its successor the remnants that remain.
What are you carrying from the old year into the next 365 days that lie ahead? Have you thought about where this year has taken you, what it has changed about you, and what of it 2012 cannot change? That's the thing about this world--old things never quite go away even if you want them to, and new things are never essentially new even if they are new to you. Solomon knew what he was saying when he wrote that there is nothing new under the sun.
So here we dwell, under the sun, the land of repetitious life, where one year blends into the next seamlessly. Despite all our fresh starts, the new leaf we attempt to turn, and the disappointments, pain, and hurt we try to put behind us, life reminds us that each unwanted reminder always hides there in the shadows of this land under the sun. Move on? It will follow. Embrace the new? Don't be surprised if it feels a lot like the old. There is nothing new under the sun.
Before you find this as depressing as I do, look beyond life under the sun. There is One who isn't trapped in this land under the sun, and He holds the power to make all things new. Above the sun He reigns supreme, He holds the past and the future, and He holds the sun and the shadows. Someday soon, maybe before 2012 threads itself into yet another new year, He will visit our land under the sun just to pull us out of this old life and give us a new one.
He promises, "For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: And the former shall not be remembered or come to mind" (Is. 65:17). A newness that finally eradicates the old; a fresh start without a hint of the pain left behind. Aside from the new heart God promises to give us, the only thing absolutely and totally new we can expect while living here under the sun is the promise that one day, someday soon, our existence under the sun will give way to a new life, in a new land, where there is "no need of the sun...to shine in it, for glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light" (Rev. 21:23).
What are you looking forward to in the New Year? I'm looking forward to a new year, knowing it takes us one year closer to life with the Son, no longer under the sun. Only God can create anything anew, and it is my prayer that the coming year brings you and me both of the only truly new things we can hope for--a new heart, and a new life in a new land not blighted by the curse of the land under the sun. I want to see the first real end--the end of sorrow, sin, and suffering; I want to see an absolutely new beginning.
It will come, if not this year perhaps the next. If not that one, perhaps the one following. But it will come. We will hear with John the long waited for announcement, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End" (Rev. 21:6)
