Last week, as you anticipated a new year and thought about the clock rolling over to 12:01 a.m., what were you feeling?  

Did you feel excitement and the hope of new beginnings? Is a new year a time of goal-setting and fresh starts for you? Or are you one of those people that are more of the mindset that January 1 is just another day, and goals and new starts can happen at any time, so a new year doesn’t need to be that big a deal?  

I found myself looking at this New Year, and trying to muster up some enthusiasm for a fresh look at things. To be honest, I was coming up pretty dry. You see, the last few months in our lives have had quite a handful of hard days, with someone we deeply love battling health challenges.

I’ve been struggling to balance a tension between two things that feel like they are a little bit in opposition.

On the one hand, the Bible tells us, to take our thoughts captive. And we know that the way we think affects our well-being. And, as believers we know that Christ lives within us and we have everything I need.

The tension I’ve been struggling with with the Lord is holding those truths alongside the fact that I have a physical body and mind, which have limitations and need to be cared for with rest. My soul just feels weary.

And so I have been asking the LORD, “What is the way forward, LORD, from this dry place?“
This morning, as I was reading in Matthew, I tripped across a phrase that burrowed itself into my heart.

It is from Matthew 28, and it’s about the women who were waiting outside the tomb. The angel spoke to them and said those profound words, “Don’t be afraid” and then the Bible says, “as the women went, Jesus met them.

It’s that same principle that shows up over and over again in scripture. He meets us when we go.

So, for whether you, like me, may feel flat or a little bit shaky in your sense of direction this new year, or whether you have goals or ideas or hopes firmly in your grasp, let’s all of us “go”, like the two women did as it says in Matthew, “filled with great joy” because we know that Jesus is going to meet us on our way.