New Beginnings

Barbara Brinkworth

Although God exists in the eternal present (John 8:58), man lives within the constraints of time. As such, God uses many periods of time in His Word.

He created all that is in six twenty-four hour days. He admonishes us to not let the sun go down on our wrath. Many times a season of testing was 40 days or years.

God also tells us to number our days. (Psalms 90:12.) One of the ways we do this is with a calendar. Because the calendar starts with January, many people use January (specifically January 1 st) as a time of new beginnings. You may have heard these called New Year’s resolutions.

According to Webster’s 1828 dictionary, “a resolution is a fixed purpose or determination.” In order to “keep” your resolutions, you must have a plan of action. Someone has said,” If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”

Let us look at a resolution that many Christians make every year. “This year I am going to read all the way through the Bible.” They begin January with their nose in Genesis. They do not have any idea how much they need to read each day; so they read until they are tired or distracted. This may go on for several weeks. By the end of January, they are only in Exodus. Now they begin to worry. It seems they still have a long way to go. Soon they are discouraged. If you ask them in March how their Bible reading is doing, you will only get a sheepish look. They have failed again.

In order for your resolution to be successful, you will need to put some thought into how you will accomplish it. In the case of Bible reading, you might choose one of the many Bible reading schedules available . Most provide a place to check off each day’s reading. This will help to ensure consistency each day.

If your resolution were to do more soul-winning or visiting, you would need to set aside a certain time each week to do it. That time would have to be reserved for only that activity. Soon people would know not to ask you to schedule anything else during that time. They would know you were committed to keeping your resolution.

New beginnings, such as New Year’s resolutions, are worthy endeavors. Plan them carefully; and as you see next December approaching, you will have numbered your days successfully.

“If everybody could understand everything the Bible said, it wouldn't be God's book. Christians and theologians have studied it for forty, fifty, or sixty years, and then only began to understand it. How could a man expect to understand it by one reading? ”
– D. L. Moody

This article was featured in The Bible View #235.