A Prayer for Newness in the New Year - Your Daily Prayer - December 31

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A Prayer for Newness in the New Year
By Lynette Kittle

Bible Reading:
“Being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” - Philippians 1:6

Listen or Read Below:

How are we beginning the New Year? Are we starting off full of regret, feeling disappointed in how the last year unfolded? Do we feel like we didn’t accomplish all of it, or even anything we had hoped to achieve? Is our list still mostly unchecked?

If so, we don’t have to carry all that anxiety into a New Year; we can leave those feelings behind us and look forward to the coming year, confident that what God tells us in Philippians 1:6 is true, and He will complete the good work He has begun in us. 

We don’t have to worry or be afraid that the hopes, dreams, and desires God has put in our hearts will not be fulfilled.

God Doesn’t Want Us Looking Back to Last Year

God doesn’t want us to dwell on our failures, shortcomings, and disappointments. In fact, He’s adamant about it, as Luke 9:62 explains, “Jesus replied, ‘No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.’”

Likewise, the Apostle Paul explains in Philippians 3:13, “Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead.”

God doesn’t want us to keep going over and over in our minds what we didn’t do last year, or what we failed to do, or what we didn’t even try to do; instead, he urges us in Isaiah 43:18, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.”

God Will Do New Things in Our Lives in the New Year

From the very start of our relationship with God, He makes everything new in us. As Ezekiel 36:26 describes, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”

Whether it seems like it or not, or if we even believe He will, God is going to do new things in our lives in the New Year.

The book of Isaiah has a lot to say about God’s pleasure and purpose in doing new things in our lives. He tells us in Isaiah 42:9, “See, the former things have taken place, and new things I declare; before they spring into being I announce them to you.”

Again, in Isaiah 43:19, saying, “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”

God Is Purposely Making Us New This Coming Year

As Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”

God doesn’t focus on our pasts, and He doesn’t want us to focus on them either. Even if we try our hardest to stay in the past, He isn’t going to let that happen in our lives because He purposely plans to make things new, and we can trust His newness in our lives is for our good.

Revelation 21:5 describes how, “He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’ Then He said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.’”

We can take God at His word and trust the newness He will bring to our lives this New Year.

Let’s Pray:

Dear Father,

Thank you for giving us a new heart and new spirit, for removing the hardness hidden in our hearts, and for replacing it with a softness towards You.

We praise You for a new year, for giving us another year of life, for the newness You have planned for us in the coming year. Help us not to look back at our past, but to look forward with hope and anticipation.

Strengthen us to trust You in the coming year and to believe Your newness is for our good; to follow Your will over our own will for our lives.

Create a newness in our hearts this coming year that leads us to seek after You and glorify Your Holy name in all that we do.

In Jesus’ name,

Amen.

Share your reflections on today’s devotional in the Your Daily Prayer discussion on the Crosswalk Forum.

Photo Credit: Anastasia Dobrusina 

Lynette Kittle is married with four daughters. She enjoys writing about faith, marriage, parenting, relationships, and life. Her writing has been published by Focus on the Family, Decision, Today’s Christian Woman, kirkcameron.com, Ungrind.org, StartMarriageRight.com, and more. She has a M.A. in Communication from Regent University and serves as associate producer for Soul Check TV.

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