Yep. It’s that time of year when you’re never really sure what day it is or what it’s going to hold. And frankly that’s not a bad thing. A little impromptu trip to the shops to see if there’s much on sale (there wasn’t). A flick on of the TV to check the score in the cricket (Australia doin’ well, sorry NZ).

A chance to buy new things and chuck old stuff out…and lose some weight…

Welcome to the post-Christmas cull. It’s well and truly happening in my apartment, which currently looks like a disaster zone. Things are being shifted left, right and centre as they gradually get sorted into piles of ‘keep’, ‘move to here’ and ‘move on outta here’.

If it wasn’t so hot and my place had air-con, I think I’d call it therapeutic.

Out with the old and in with the new; it seems rather appropriate at this time of year. A time for looking back on the year that was and getting rid of the things no longer needed, or, let’s face it, that sat on the shelf the whole year and never got used.

It’s a time for new beginnings and cleansing.

It’s actually part of the Christian life and reminds me of two particular parts of The Bible. Firstly:

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

Jesus does more than just a light vacuum clean of us when we decide to become Christians. He actually chucks the whole old self out and recreates us spiritually into a new person.

There’s no need to worry whether you are good enough for God because no one is and he sorts out the dirt for everyone, anyway. He recreates us into someone who is fit for him. We are his clean-up project and not the other way around.

And now the second passage:

Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland…

God doesn’t do any ‘Last year 2.0’ nonsense. He doesn’t rehash a gig. He does something new. He has endless creativity when it comes to each New Year.

For some, 2019 may have been a great year and you’d like to play it on repeat. For others, you are more than ready to leave 2019 and move on.

Quoting the above verse and thinking of those who haven’t had a great year makes me think of tobyMac (or Kevin McKeehan to not use his stage name). McKeehan didn’t have a great year with the death of his son. No words can describe the sense of loss he would have felt in these last few months.

Currently, one of McKeehan’s songs, Edge of my seat is getting a fair bit of airplay on the Christian radio waves. In the song he quotes the above passage before he returns to singing the chorus:

You’ve got me on the edge, got me on the edge of my seat

He’s singing about God getting his attention, making him positively anticipate each and every day and what it brings. For those who regularly read this blog, you know I frequently give you a tune to listen to: so here’s one last one for the year.

I hope that along with tobyMac you’ll be on the edge of your seat in 2020, having your eyes opened to the brand new possibilities God’s got in store for you.

Yours in perceiving newness,

Alison