For Wilshire Baptist Church
It’s a common statement as we flip the calendar: “I can’t believe the year went by so fast? Where did it go?” Often it sounds like a complaint or a regret and spoken with heavy sighs of frustration. It’s rare that I hear someone say, “Wow, what a wonderful gift from God that was!” But maybe we should say that, and while we’re at it, we should thank God for this new year too, because it’s a gift as well.
2025. We didn’t create it. We didn’t earn it. We don’t deserve it. We might have boxed it in and marked its start and finish with our 365-day Gregorian calendar, but this new year is actually an infinitesimally small segment of an infinite expanse of time created by a God we can’t see and struggle to understand. Each of us has been born into this tiny segment of time and we’re invited by our Creator to participate and contribute to whatever is happening during our lifetime.
I’m not sure what 2025 will bring; I don’t have a clue. Oh yes, my calendar is already dotted with appointments and events. Many of those are medical follow-ups and thus reminders of my cancer diagnosis and treatment in 2023. When I consider that, then 2024 was definitely a gift, and so now is 2025. Also already on my calendar are high school graduations, birthdays and anniversaries, as well as Baylor basketball into early March and even the first three games for Baylor football. Still, I don’t know what the big, unexpected surprises will be; I can’t foresee the earthquakes, flashfloods and avalanches that will forever alter expectations and trajectories.
This gift of a new year is one we unwrap one day at a time. And the gift is different for each of us, because none of us has the exact same way of experiencing time. We might live on the same street, work at the same business, attend the same school, worship at the same church, salute the same flag, cheer the same team, but how we experience those common elements still is not the same. Our perspective is impacted by a million variables encompassing education, health, family, career, income, and on and on.
So, the new year should be approached with ample measures of patience, tolerance, empathy, sympathy and courage. We should be willing to give some leeway to others just as we would want them to give the same to us, because while we’re all in this together, we’re not in it exactly the same way.
If we can remember that, we just might make it to 2026 and look back and say, “Thank you God for the gift of 2025.”