Revolution

New Year's Day never actually feels like a new year to me. It's just as cold is it was the day before, just as dark, just as busy.  In fact, it doesn't really hit me until I am required to sign some document with the date when I inevitably sign the previous year and then realize a new year has begun.  But there is no denying that every year, a new year comes. God designed it that way. Our earth revolves around the sun and completes one revolution in 365 days. After 365 days, it starts anew- the same path, seemingly, but always with different results. The weather is rarely exactly the same on the same day year after year. Although the sun takes the same path, it always sees different results: perhaps cloud coverage here, perhaps a winter storm there, perhaps rain this day last year but drought this year. Its path seems predictable, but no one really knows what it will encounter or cause on the journey. We just know it will take 365 days to complete. A year. One full revolution.

Our paths our similar to the sun's, don't you think? I mean, there are some things we know for sure about this upcoming year. There will be four seasons, the sun will rise in the East every morning and set in the West every night. It will rain some, snow some, be dry, be wet. In spring, flowers will bud and bees will wake. In fall, these same things will slumber. There are some things we just know. Yet, there is still so much we don't know. For instance, we don't exactly know, right now, when the sun will rise and set each day. We don't know exactly when the first snowfall or rainfall or thunderstorm will hit. We can't be sure what day the bees will wake and what night the bears will start to hibernate. We just know they will happen at some point along the way. These things are consistent and familiar, even if we can't predict everything about them right now.

I am thankful for some familiarity and consistency in this world of knowns and unknowns. Mostly, I am thankful for the familiar and consistent God who makes things this way. He is reliable and trustworthy. He is consistently faithful and familiar. I know Him. No, not everything about Him- my little mind can't handle all of that knowledge and experience. But here's what I do know: "*because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning...".    His compassions never fail and just as the morning is new each day- it is consistent and familiar- so is God's compassion for us- consistent, familiar. Just as we have a guarantee that God will raise the sun each morning, we have a guarantee that God will be compassionate and loving towards us EVERY. DAY. When we know the morning will come but don't know all it will hold, we can know this: it will hold the love and compassion of the Lord. Always. Every day of these 365.  And it is because of Him that no matter what our days hold we "are not consumed" on this revolution of our lives.

Your journey may look the same to you as you face it anew this morning. Maybe your stuck in the dreariness of winter, or perhaps you're lost in fears or grief. Maybe you feel hopeless as this new year begins because you feel like things never change. Or maybe you are hopeful, this new year, as you put sorrow or pain or disappointment from last year behind and hope to write a different story in this new year. Wherever you are, whatever troubles you face or recall- there is a familiar and consistent God on the throne Who is compassionate and loving towards you every day. I know it doesn't always seem like this is true, but maybe this new day, this new year, every year, is a reminder of just that. No matter where you are or what you're going through, even when you are dealing with something so big and so hard you feel like the whole world should stop and take notice- it doesn't. 365 days, each day, the journey continues. God continues. With you.

Expect Him.