A new year—a new calendar, at least for many of us. One of my first functions in January is to pull out my new calendar and start writing important dates on it. I usually start with filling in birthdays and anniversaries, then important dates (last year a new grandson!), then ever-increasing doctors’ appointments, and some vacations and holidays. Then for many of us, school holidays and breaks, recurrent events. Then reminders like dog medicine, garbage pick-up dates, Tax Day (!).
I always try to make everything neat and tidy. But…invariably I make a mistake. It may be I flip to the wrong month or put in the wrong time. Then as the year progresses, there are changes, so there have to be strike-outs, sometimes arrows to a different date, sloppy entries. Also there may be coffee rings, smears from past snacks, and even, maybe, crumpled, smeared pages where a granddaughter sprayed the water hose through an open window.
So, each year, I start with a pristine calendar and by the end of year I have a shabby, worn-out bunch of sheets. But I like to keep the old calendar, for in it there is a record or diary of sorts from my previous year. It reminds me of hard times and good times, helps me remember when things happened, and hopefully shows some progression and completion.
As a Christian, my life is often like that calendar. I start fresh, but all sorts of things get changed and re-arranged. I’ve messed up on several occasions (failed to read my Bible that day?), had cancellations or rescheduling (that ladies’ Bible study that just never got started), and stains and smears (personal problems, relationship problems, social problems, church problems).
But no matter what, each day is completed and at the end of the month, I get to flip the page to a new month’s page.
Lamentations 3:22, 23 (New Living Translation [NLT]) tells us:
“The faithful love of the Lord never ends,
His mercies never cease.
Great is his faithfulness;
his mercies begin afresh each morning.”
And again we read: “The Lord directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives.” (Psalm 37:23 NLT)
So, even though my calendar may look like a mess and my life may be seemingly falling apart, I know that God cares about all the minutia of my life, all the slip-ups and all the changes that have occurred, I can know that his mercies continue, and they are fresh each and every day. He has promised to guide me and he will delight in me, even though I fail. At the end of the day, the week, the month, and, eventually, the year, I can know that God has been with me. And so, when next year I take down the old calendar and start the unspoiled new one, I can see where I have been and a glimpse of where I will be going, with God directing my steps.
Lamp for my feet 