Faithful readers, I’m so excited to share my new book with you! Available for pre-order now, A Word for Your Day, 66 Devotions to Refresh Your Mind takes you on a grand and glorious journey through every book of the Bible. Each story-driven (often hilarious) devotion captures the essence of one important word. Starting with Beginning in Genesis and ending with New in Revelation, we’ll journey together through the highs and lows of life on this earth. We’ll laugh, cry, and praise God together for His faithfulness to walk with us all the days of our life.

Because I’m grateful for your faithful readership, I want to share with you a sneak peek at the very first devotion in the book. I pray it blesses you big time.

Will you pray with me that God will use this book to draw many into a richer, fuller relationship with God this year? And if you’d like to be one of the first to read A Word for Your Day, 66 Devotions to Refresh Your Mind, click HERE to order. Word has it that advance copies will begin shipping BEFORE its official release date of February 3. Wouldn’t you love to have one of the first copies?

beginning

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 

Genesis 1:1

Who doesn’t love a new beginning? Especially the beginning of a new year. With the orbit of the earth and the turn of the calendar page, we bid the old farewell and greet the new with a welcoming kiss. Only a second separates the previous year from the following, yet there it is—a fresh start. A do-over. A reboot.

Three hundred sixty-five days stretch promisingly before us, shining in their unmarred splendor. We breathe in their scent, crisp and clean, and we feel hope. A new year invites us to archive the difficulties of the previous year and turn our faces toward the dawn of new beginnings.

Like children on the first day of summer vacation, we look ahead to days fertile with promise, and our imaginations soar. Will this be the year our prodigal turns to the Lord? Or the year a long-awaited dream comes true? Will the prayer of a decade come to fruition? 

Will God reveal himself in ways we can only imagine?

At the dawn of time, the Bible tells us, God was there. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). Hebrews 1:10 fleshes out the details: “In the beginning, Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.”

I wonder if God’s heart beat hard as He peered out over the vast expanse of nothingness, knowing that very soon, something spectacular would take its place. A sparkling world filled with promise only He could create. As we face new beginnings, do our hearts beat with similar anticipation?

Sometimes mine does. Other times, a niggle of fear gnaws at the edges of my excitement. If the previous year has been hard, I wonder if more heartache will follow. If the year overflowed with joy and blessings, I wonder if the tide will turn, pummeling my life with storms.

Whether you greet a new start with anticipation or trepidation, it’s comforting to know that God has been present in every beginning. The early verses of John 1 affirm this truth. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning” (vv. 1–2).

Revelation 22:13 tells us that Beginning is one of His names: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.”

Whether your new year holds tragedy or triumph, you can rest in confidence that God is there. Not just in the beginning, but all the way through. Unlike the deists—who believe God set the world in motion, then stepped back to watch it play itself out—we know God goes behind us and before us, hemming us in with His presence and protection (Psalm 139:5). Nothing comes into our lives that isn’t filtered through His hands of love.

We can be confident God will accompany us every step of the way—through our new year, our new venture, our new beginning.

*This post is excerpted from A Word for Your Day, 66 Devotions to Refresh Your Mind, published by Our Daily Bread Publishing.