At the Well

Today, At the Well, LauraLee from LauraLee's Lifesong is hosting. She has us ponder the New Year. Here are her questions:

The New Year is a time for us to let go of the past and look forward to newness. Everyone thinks about that differently.

Answer any one of these questions, all the below, or just give your thoughts about the New Year.

1. What is your favorite "resolution" in the Bible?

2. Do you do a New Year's resolution? Why or why not? Does your family make a resolution together?

3. Usually a resolution comes as a result of regretting something you didn't do the year before. How do you let go of the regret and move forward?

4. (optional...only if you wish to share) Have you ever made a resolution inthe past that you didn't keep and wish you had?

Please take a few minutes to read LauraLee's post! It is beautiful.

Like LauraLee, I don't want to have a list of rules to follow/promises that I will break by Feburary! But, I love the idea that we get to "start over" each year....that we begin with a clean slate...a fresh start. I think this idea resonates with me because I NEED a new beginning.....

I love that God is a God of New Beginnings. I love that in Lamentations Jeremiah reminds us, "...I have hope. Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new each morning; great is Your faithfulness." And, Paul tells me that "I am a NEW creation in Christ. Even when I was DEAD, God has made me alive in Christ. I have taken off the old self, with its practices and put on the NEW self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator." (2 Corin. 5:17, Ephes. 2:5, Colos. 3:9-10)

I need to know that past mistakes and circumstances are wiped away and that God begins fresh and new. No matter how disappointed I have been with MYSELF, God sees me hidden in Christ, a NEW CREATURE, a NEW CREATION.

I am thankful for New Beginnings.

I pray many blessings for you and your family for 2009! I know God has amazing things in store for us. I am thankful that He allows me to share this journey with you. This morning I was pondering how great our God is from Isaiah...

"Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood since the earth was founded?....

To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal: says the Holy One....

...Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all of these?

Who brings out the starry host one by one and calls them each by name.

Because of His great power and mighty strength not one of them is missing....

The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth..."

And, I was reminded of WHO Jesus IS...

that He came to "open the eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness."

I am so thankful that Jesus opens my eyes and frees me from every prison- from worry, doubt, unforgiveness (especially towards myself), sin....

God says (Isaiah 42:8-9)

I am the LORD; that is my name!

I will not give glory to another or my praise to idols.

See the former things have taken place,

AND NEW THINGS I DECLARE...

Happy New Year!