Marching On

March 1st!!  I love the first of the month.  Actually, I love the first of anything.....months, seasons, years....anything that sort of gives you a new beginning.  This is my first blog post in a while.  As you might have read in an earlier post, my husband and I moved.  We moved a couple of days ago and now comes the long painful process of unpacking.  As we were preparing to move, I told my husband that this was a great and extremely necessary fresh start.  For the new place, we got a new phone number, a new mattress set, new linens, new curtains, new paint and more.  It's a new place and a new month and I feel like I've breathed in a breath of fresh air -- the air of newness.
Life has a way of getting stagnate.  The same job, same car, same breakfast cereal....we get bogged down in same-ness.  And although routine and order is good, the fresh feeling of "new" is invigorating.  I think that is how the writers in the Bible felt when many of them used "new" as a powerful adjective.  Read just a few of these examples of "new" found in the Old Testament:


Deuteronomy 32:2
Let my teaching fall like rain and my words descend like dew, like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on tender plants.


2 Kings 18:32
until I come and take you to a land like your own—a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey. Choose life and not death!


Job 14:7
“At least there is hope for a tree: If it is cut down, it will sprout again, and its new shoots will not fail.
Psalm 33:3
Sing to him a new song; play skillfully, and shout for joy


Proverbs 27:25
When the hay is removed and new growth appears and the grass from the hills is gathered in


Isaiah 43:19
See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.


It seems that new-ness is very important to God.  When we give our lives to Him and the blood of Jesus redeems us, we are given beauty for our ashes. What a personal expression of a second chance or a fresh start.  I guess that is why Isaiah writes, "See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind." (Is.65:17)

Even though we can't move to a new home every day, or that a new month only comes once every 30 or so days, we can start each day with a fresh attitude.  God chooses to start each morning with new mercies and graces.  Lamentations tells us that because of God's great love for us, His compassions never fail but are new every morning.  What a great breath of fresh air!