A Year of Possibilities

Happy New Year!

Do you have a new calendar up yet? Yesterday, as we were flying home from Pittsburgh, I realized I didn’t have a new calendar, and I got a little excited about getting a new one. I always love getting a brand new calendar. There’s nothing like a clean slate.  You don’t have anything bearing down on you as urgent. The squares are blank, just waiting for you to write things on them. The opportunities are endless.  I love to take colored pens to my calendar, recording birthdays in one color and meetings in another. Don’t make fun of me.  Once a teacher, always a teacher. Plus, it makes my calendar festive looking, instead of the boring black and white.

As we were walking from the parking lot to the airport, I glanced over to a small patch of grass protected by concrete walls and saw a blanket of white snow. Like a blank calendar, it didn’t have any impressions on it.  It was clean, pure, and untouched. Two thoughts came to my mind as I looked at the snow. First, the sweet girls I work with and fight for who are victims of human sex trafficking have had that stripped from them.  They do not see themselves as clean, pure or untouched.  If they were to relate themselves to snow, it would be the gray or black snow mushed to the side of the road after it had been ridden over and become filthy. Then I realized many of us view ourselves the same way: used, dirty, damaged.

Fortunately, we don’t have to remain that way and neither do the victims of human sex trafficking.  We can all cry out as the Psalmist did in Psalm 51:7,

Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

None of us are so dirty, the Lord can’t step in and make us clean.  We simply have to allow Him to do it.  He’s a gentleman.  He’ll never force Himself of someone. He waits for an invitation from us to enter into our situations, into our lives, and into our hearts.  1 John 1:9 says,

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

When He enters in, He removes our ugliness, our sin.  He moves it as far as the east is from the west [Psalm 103:12]. We are clean and free [John 8:36].  Our old life has passed away and we are a new creation [2 Corinthians 5:17].  We are like a blank calendar, waiting for new plans to be recorded in our life. The great thing about walking with Jesus is we don’t have to make the plans.  We can trust Him to make the plans and bring them to fruition in our lives.  He has great plans for us [Jeremiah 29:11].

Today is January 2, 2013.  It doesn’t just mark a day of possibilities, but a year of possibilities. You have the opportunity to start it off clean, pure, and untouched, waiting for the Father to guide your steps and direct your path. What will you choose?