Fresh and New!

With this being our very first blog post for the New Year of 2025, I would like to wish everyone a blessed, prosperous, diligent and healthy New Year!

I can’t help but to get excited at the beginning of every New Year.  Even as I look outside the big window here in my study and observe the dreary, overcast skies and the brown (dormant) lawns in my neighborhood, as well as those covering the golf course just a few short steps away… I am enthusiastic about what is ahead for me in this New Year of 2025.

As far as the immediate future goes, we here in the central states of America are gearing up for the first winter storm of the season.  It promises to bring Arctic conditions complete with snow, strong northern winds, and chill factors into the single digit numbers for some of us and below zero for most north of our location.  But after this weather front moves on through, toward the end of the week… I am excited with a FRESH NEW anticipation of what good, gracious and WONDER-FILLED experiences that the Lord has in store for me and my family in the months ahead.

I always like to seek the Lord to discover a special verse or verses of Scripture as a foundation for each New Year.   And this year was no different.  An old familiar verse from the book of Psalms came to my remembrance a few weeks ago that seemed to ignite a FRESH NEW fire of EXPECTANCY within me for the New Year.

In Psalm 40, David wrote of a situation in his life from which he had sought the Lord in a time of deep trouble and despondency and described how the Lord heard his cry, pulled him out of the pit of destruction and set his feet upon a rock, making his footsteps firm.* And then with the great JOY of EXPECTANCY, he told of the NEW SONG that God had placed in his mouth declaring,

“A new song for a new day rises up in me every time I think about how He breaks through for me! Ecstatic praise pours out of my mouth until everyone hears how God has set me free. Many will see His miracles; they’ll stand in awe of God and fall in love with Him!” (Psalm 40:3 - The Passion Translation)

The word NEW in this verse literally describes “a FRESH, NEW THING”** and while I am not sure about you… the thought of FRESH NEW THINGS happening in the course of my life in 2025… thoroughly invigorates and excites me!  I already have plans set in motion for this NEW Year that center around a springtime move to Tennessee to be near my older two kids and their families… AND to be near the wonderful landscape of tall mountains complete with rivers, lakes and tall pines that reach up into the sky… that all contribute to their state’s larger than life, overflow of American history that pre-dates the Revolutionary War!

So, yea… I’m excited for the NEW Year, but more importantly… of how the good Lord is going to put it all together for me, each and every step of the way!  This move is NOT like the others I’ve made in the past and I am thoroughly EXCITED and Highly EXPECTANT of the FRESH NEW THINGS that He has up HIS sleeve for me!

So, HOW ABOUT YOU in 2025?  You may not have a major move in your upcoming plans, but I am pretty sure that you have goals, hopes and dreams that you are looking forward to seeing completed in the NEW Year ahead… Am I right?

David tells us in PSALM 40:1-3 that when we go to the Lord in prayer and cry out our heartfelt thoughts, concerns and hopeful plans to Him… that… no matter how BAD the situation seems to be… that He will hear our cries, bring us out of the pit of destruction, place our feet on the solid ROCK of JESUS and thereby make our footsteps firm AND:

“Put a (fresh) NEW SONG in our mouths, a (fresh NEW) SONG of praise to our God” so that “Many will see and revere (HIM) and (through our acts of faith-based praise) put their trust in the Lord” (Psalm 40:3 – NASB)

So… What do you think?  Are you READY and EXPECTANT for the NEW SONG for the NEW DAY that He wants to place in you for 2025?  I sure am… So… Let’s go for it together!  Have a great weekend… and get ready to SING for Him!

 

*Psalm 40:1-2 NASB

**Strong’s Hebrew and Greek Dictionaries