This is the 52nd time I’ve awakened on a New Year’s Day, and it occurs to me that I’m standing at the precipice of 52 fresh weeks before I awaken, Lord willing, on another one. I’m certain, based on personal experience, that they will fly by at breakneck speed. What to do with each one?

It’s not a new question. Certainly, the very invention of the New Year’s Resolution is evidence of that. Weight loss, exercise, eat right, get that promotion, write a book, take a trip, and on and on. My (very loosely constructed) list includes Purge, with a capital P. Mainly, my house, which has become stuffed to the gills since we moved in four years ago, but also my diet and my heart. There’s a boatload of garbage that needs to go from all three, but truthfully, that’s not what I’m talking about.

I’m asking what to do with each of those 52 weeks. I’m standing on the side of things that leaves me with less weeks ahead than behind. I want to be resolved to not just change the things that effect my own little world, but things that change the world for the KINGDOM. I would like to allow the Lord, as never before, to slip me on like a glove and work through me for eternal significance.

I don’t know what that looks like, here, before the dawn even breaks over the horizon of 2016. It will start out simply, with wiping noses and bottoms, and cuddling them once that’s finished, and that may be exactly how He continues to impact the Kingdom through me. It could, however, be something completely unexpected that pulls me straight out of my comfort zone and into something only He could orchestrate.

It could be both.

I don’t know, but I’m ready. Well, I will be, once I take out the garbage. After all, I’ve got 52 weeks to travel through and it’s best to travel light.

Don’t you agree?

Forget about what’s happened;
    don’t keep going over old history.
Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new.
    It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it? ~ Isaiah 43:19 MSG