Beginnings

A New Year has arrived, a beginning, a moment of transition, terminating the old, commencing the new.   A rite of passage occurs this time of the year: new resolutions, new commitments, an idea that something might change in the upcoming year that failed to do so in the last.  Though New Year's Day is technically just another day, it's the cracking of a mental and psychological barrier that inspires us to believe in something better, to break away from fragments of a past that have anchored our hopes.

January is the month in which we find some fortitude, some resolve, to disregard the "If Only" and "Has Been", our spirit clamoring for the "What If."  We ascend the tree of unfamiliarity, inch to the edge of its branches, and seize the rope of possibility.  "A new beginning," we tell ourselves, the forest of dreams ahead.  We launch ourselves, swinging for fresh limbs of life, the newfound resolutions a wind to our backs.  Sometimes we land, finding the change we seek.  But all too often, we let go, midflight, fearful, crashing back to earth, hard to the floor of our present reality.

As humans, we're creatures of habit, of comfort.  We tend to be uncomfortable with change, with the uncertainty that beginnings bring.  The past clings tight, not wanting to let go. We feel its comfort and are drawn to it, even when we've not found fulfillment there for some time. Insecurities lurk, ready to encroach, pulling us back to the past of our lives. It's there we abandon our flight for change.

This New Year, as you contemplate another chapter in your life, a time of fresh beginnings, consider the wider horizons, the wider possibilities, the trails not taken, and be comfortable with uncertainty.  Don't be afraid to think outside the box.  Breakthroughs come from being audacious and uncomfortable.  Sometimes we're stretched to the breaking point by everything that stands between us and the change we seek.  We must refuse to break, and be heartless with the urge to give in, to not allow the familiarity of the past to overshadow future expectations.

Most of us hope to step out of the everyday routine of life and enter a space where we can say, "Wow."  Reaching for something new, something that can be, empowers the imagination, gives faith a fighting chance.  Yet, we often live life backwards.  We think we live by what we want.  But really what guides us is what we're afraid of, what we don't want.  We fear loss more than we covet gain, failing to see that loss, once you let go, can lead to a much bigger gain.  In launching, we befriend contingency, meeting God in the havoc of chance. 

As I glance back on loss in my own life, I see something now I couldn't see then: In letting go, comfortable misery was exchanged for an uncomfortable beginning.  God used the discomfort to get me to where I needed to be, opening me up to pursue His promises for my life.  Even God himself had a new beginning.  It's unfathomable to imagine, but the Creator of all things reinvented himself, altering a plan that had failed, creating a new beginning in Bethlehem.  And that beginning had its origins in uncertainty, doubt, hardship, and failure. Breaking from the past led to the fulfillment of promises spoken in that past.

Events rarely happen as anticipated in our lives.  Sometimes things don't turn out as planned, but the end result of what we seek can be found through the strange twists of fate.  We all have made mistakes in life, fallen short. There is little we can do about the bad things that have already transpired.  We can be changed by what happened, but there is no need to be reduced by it.  At some point, we must get past the negative energy and get on to what we're going to do.  How we learn from our mistakes becomes the measure of who we are, of what we become, of where we arrive.

People can think too much of the past.  The past is over.  Kiss it goodbye.  Stay in the present.  Why think of bad things when you can think of good things?  In the present we're creating the future, engaging beginnings.  If we don't live in the now, we're missing life.  Many of us worry so much about the lives we're failing to live that the story we sometimes fashion about our time on earth becomes about what we couldn't or didn't do.  We chain ourselves to failure and insecurity by wallowing around in the muck and mire of our shortcomings. By giving too much attention to the pain of the past, we limit our future; we rob ourselves of fresh beginnings.

The best improvements in life come out of real problems and real pain and real failure, as it did with God's new covenant with humanity.  From every tragedy comes something miraculous.  I think of Thomas Edison and all those failed experiments leading him to the one that finally worked.  I think of Abraham Lincoln and all his personal failures guiding him to the highest office in the land, the presidency.  Both men let go of the past, allowing the failure of the past to birth something better.

Life is awash with possibilities.  No issue with pain and injury and failure provides us with total confidence that a beginning is the right thing to pursue.  We will encounter obstacles and must battle through them.  God will provide the strength and tools needed to make something better out of a bad situation. Cling tight to the destiny God has planned for you.  He will lead you to where you need to be.  Divine appointments of fate do appear when we let go and embrace what will be.