Old Year Finished or New Year Beginning?

Glass half empty or half full?  Of course, both.  And yet as we begin a new year, I am amazed by how many people around me are "stuck" either wholly in the past or wholly in the future.  A dear friend's father has severe Alzhemiers and he is of course "stuck" in his childhood.  It is very sad to witness and hard to bear daily.  But many of us have spiritual Alzheimers.  We hang on to old hurts and nurse them rather than to chose forgiveness and move forward.  We feed old habits and use them as excuses for our lack of growth and maturity.  We harbor old thoughts and desires like Halloween candy found covered in pocket fuzz, refusing to give them up or laughing that they don't matter as we continue to cling to them.  The future, the New year, the new morning each day is fresh and clean, full of sweet aroma after a storm.  So it is vital that we see that the glass is both half empty and half full; the old year needs to cause us reflection as the new year causes us to be hopeful.  The word "remember" appears at least 250 times in the Bible.  God gave commands to His people over and over to remember - what He had done, what He will do, how we have disobeyed, what disobedience leads to, how He forgives and shows mercy, how wonderful things can be if we obey, etc.

If your parent disciplined you as a child, and you could not remember or chose to forget, when/what/why they disciplined you, would you have grown into the person you are today?  And yet how remiss we are to remember and ponder the workings of our Loving, Merciful Father.  So this week has been one for us to not only begin anew, but to look at the "whys" of our changes, the reasons that we should want to grow.  Not to be stuck in the past or hold on to old sins, but because of those old sins begin anew to desire the true glass of water - living water - to overflowing. 

"Lord, today and each new day, help me to remember your mercies and desire your new life to overflowing.  Help me forgive past hurts, leave old habits behind, retrain my heart and mind to dwell on You and not on my selfish passions.  Give me a sense of newness, eternity, and hope straight from your Loving Word.  Purge me of all fleshly desires and replace them with an intense burning for Your presence.  Amen."