BEGIN AS BELOVED

As we reflect on 2023 and look ahead to 2024, I like to learn how others are planning to enter the new year. I have found a variety of ideas–resolutions to change, goals to pursue, things to surrender, practices to follow. Some see 2024 as a fresh start with 366 daily opportunities to live differently. Others may see the coming year simply as a continuation of regular daily living. One of my favorite practices is to choose a guiding word for the year (I will share my word later this week).

The best place to begin our new year discernments and decisions is in the loving embrace of God.

Centering ourselves first in God’s all-encompassing love, we will find that our dreams, goals, hopes, and insights can flow more readily from that perfect place. A desire to improve can flow out of gratitude rather than fear. A willingness to surrender can flow out of a sense of provision rather than scarcity. The courage to venture forth can flow from feeling securely held. A longing to perfect ourselves can flow from experiencing mercy and grace over our personal striving. Any challenges, obstacles, uncertainties, and criticisms that may come our way can be faced with the strength, trust, and peace found in God’s immense and infinite love for us.

We can begin as beloved.

We do not know what the year will bring, what journeys we will take, what joys and sorrows may come our way. But we can take our first step knowing we do not go alone. With this incredible gift, we may even find that we no longer need resolutions, plans, or goals. For as we begin each day centered in God’s loving embrace, we will also discover God’s guidance, instruction, preparation, and inspiration to live well–for each moment, each day of 2024.

New Year blessings, dear friends. May every goodness shine upon you. You are so beloved.

O God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. *




* Prayer of Good Courage, Lutheran Book of Worship. Augsburg, 1978
(Written by Eric Milner-White, dean of the chapel at King’s College, Cambridge, the prayer, titled “The Call of Abraham,” was first published in 1941 in a little book titled Daily Prayer, compiled by Milner-White and G.W. Briggs.)
Photo by Karen; walking bridge–once a train trellis–in Peak, SC