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With New Year’s just around the corner…
I’ve been doing some reflecting on this past year. This seems to be what most people do for New Year’s… Looking back on the events of the year. Deciding what went well and what didn’t. Resolving to cut out the bad and embrace the good. Wanting to get rid of the old to make room for the new. Searching for a fresh start.
This got me thinking about how we are suckers for newness. Second chances. Do overs. Fresh starts. Clean slates. Blank pages. Empty canvases. Restart buttons.
And why not? There’s something truly intoxicating about starting something new. The thrill! The excitement! The hope.
I think this urge for newness relates directly to our human natures that are crying out for redemption.
We feel the weight of our brokenness and we long for wholeness. In our heart of hearts, we sense that the sum of all the wrongs we have done is more than we could ever fix on our own. We are deep in a pit of our own making, wishing we could start over again. Surely, we’d do things differently if given a second chance.
So in an attempt to glue together the broken pieces of our lives, we try to press “restart” as often as we can. New attitude, new job, new haircut, new exercise routine, new budget, new eating habits, new friends, new city, new car, new cleaning schedule, new….anything that might make us feel whole.
Usually, New Year’s is the season most of us choose to engage in this kind of glowing optimism and thirst for self improvement. But for most of us, our extra motivation and lofty resolutions rarely last through January, much less the entirety of the year.
Even when we give ourselves a second chance, we find ourselves reverting back to the same ol’ same ol’. Except now we feel worse than before because we really did want to change, but we couldn’t seem to make it happen.
Yet again, this inability to achieve perfection in our lives relates directly to our human natures.
Despite how much we crave perfection and wholeness, we are ultimately incapable of living it out. This is because we are imperfect, sinful beings. If we rely on our own strength and ability, we are doomed to forever push the “restart” button over and over again with limited results and fathomless disappointment.
(Now, I’m not saying we are incapable of improvement. In fact, I do think we are capable of some amazing transformations of heart, mind, and body! But even these transformations have some flaws, and we are still left with a feeling of incompleteness.)
The good news is that we are not alone in our brokeness!
God gave us all the ULTIMATE fresh start when He sent Jesus down to Earth as a baby so that he could save us from our sins. He dug us out of the hole we made for ourselves and lifted us out. Then He told us that if we only just believe in Him as our Savior, He will forgive our sins, scatter them as far as the east is from the west, and wipe our slate completely clean. Our life-long list of failures and brokeness – a blood-stained record too massive for us to even comprehend – will be as white as pure, fresh snow.
This is like New Year’s every single day, you guys! A fresh start, a clean slate, a restart button of truly EPIC proportions!!
God makes fresh starts easy.
Even when we inevitably mess up again, we can find comfort knowing that God forgives us each time we ask Him to. When we try to be “better,” make some New Year’s resolutions, and inevitably fail… He still loves us. When we feel completely and utterly worthless, He sees our worth. It’s not our works that save us or make us valuable – it’s HIS saving grace.
Isn’t it cool that our human natures are wired to long for the very redemption God offers us? That even though we are flawed, we can feel deep down that we were made for more? It’s like God built a radar into our hearts so that we could eventually find Him and the fresh start He offers us. Gah, it’s so cool!
I, for one, am so very thankful for my faith in a good God who forgives me of all my shortcomings. Every day when I confess my sins to Him, He forgives me and presses “restart” on my record. It’s not anything that I do by myself, it’s all HIM doing the hard work for me. All I have to do is acknowledge that He is my Savior and give Him all the glory.
It’s not by my own strength.
Even though I’ve been a follower of Christ for about as long as I can remember, that doesn’t mean I have it all together. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. I’m a hot mess most days. But fortunately, it’s not my own strength that matters, it’s Christ’s strength. Since HE took on the weight of my failures, I can embrace my weaknesses and boast in HIS strength at work in my life.
But because I’m an imperfect human being in constant need of my Savior…sometimes I forget these truths. Remember at the beginning, I said I’ve been reflecting on this past year? Well last New Year’s – the beginning of 2019 – I was struggling big time.
For instance, I was struggling…
- To learn how to navigate life without my son, Morgan.
- To shift my mind into a gear that would accept my new reality as a bereaved parent.
- With finding a consistent sleeping and eating routine.
- With “grief brain”, which fogged up my mind and made it hard to focus.
- To recoup from the extra strain of the holidays that I wanted nothing to do with.
- With my anxiety, which was stuck in overdrive.
- To stay connected with friends.
- With the fear of life moving on and my son being forgotten.
- With leaving behind the one and only calendar year where my son existed on this Earth (2018).
- To find a glimmer of light in the darkness that was engulfing my world.
- To hold tight to my faith in a good God, when my life felt like anything but good.
Ultimately, I was feeling completely and utterly defeated. I was struggling to remember that it was God’s strength that mattered, not my own.
Enter: my dear friend, Diana wielding her trusty devotional book… Streams in the Desert.
Diana proceeded to tell me that she loved this book and had read it through multiple times. It was a one year devotional that had a short reading for every day of the year. The theme: how God’s Word is like a cool, refreshing stream in the midst of the barren desert of our trials. She really thought that this devotional would help me through this season of my life that was full of struggle and disappointment.
I told her, “yes, I want read it!” And I meant it – this book sounded like something I needed. But I was also thinking to myself, “ehhh, I probably won’t finish it. I never finish those year-long things.” I was hesitant to commit to something long term because it was a struggle to make plans for the future. (I recently learned that even the most well-laid plans can be suddenly destroyed, so thinking forward more than one day at a time was difficult.)
In the end, Diana let me borrow her copy and I read the first few days.
I. Was. Hooked.
On day 3, I ended up buying myself a copy of Streams in the Desert on Amazon because I wanted to be able to underline things and dog-ear my favorite days.
Everything about this devotional spoke to me.
The weight of Morgan’s death – which occurred exactly one month before – was suffocating me. So these little, daily doses of Scripture were exactly what my crushed spirit needed. They were reminding me that I didn’t have to try to survive on my own because my Heavenly Father was giving me His strength to battle these struggles. With this reminder came a lot of peace.
Each day had a Bible verse with accompanying reflections, stories, hymns and/or poetry… all geared toward the theme of how God is with us through our trials and suffering. This book was a cooling salve on my wounded heart. Lather on. Let absorb. Repeat daily.
Let’s be extra real for a second…
I have always been (and will continue to be) just like everyone else in the world who is easily enamoured by the glittery, exciting process of setting New Year’s goals. I usually fall off the bandwagon a few weeks in, and I get really depressed when I prove to myself yet again that I don’t have very good “follow through”.
So I’m not here to tell you I’ve figured it all out and I found the solution to all of our goal-setting problems. This is not a “10 steps to a New You in the New Year” or a “This Book Will Solve All Your Problems” post.
But this is the first time in my life that I have actually finished a one-year goal of any kind. As of today (New Year’s Eve), I actually completed this one year, daily devotional!
This is HUGE for me!!
Again – to be totally transparent – I didn’t do it perfectly. I didn’t remember to read it every day. But I was never more than a couple days behind, and I always caught up. (That actually worked quite well for me, because the daily readings are very short and I liked to read two or three in one sitting.)
My point is I stayed on track the whole year, overall, and that’s big for me.
As I have been reflecting on 2019…
I’ve decided that Streams in the Desert is hands down the best thing I did this year. 2019 has held a lot of struggles and challenges for me, but this book was a game changer. That is why I wanted to tell you about it, particularly on New Year’s Eve.
This book spoke to me in ways I never expected. It’s helped me process many complicated emotions and thoughts about my grief. It constantly pointed me back to what God had to say about my struggles, redirected my focus away from my pain, and pointed me towards the ultimate Healer and Comforter.
Also, this book helped me form a consistant (almost daily) Scripture reading habit and personal time with the Lord – a habit that has been difficult for me to cultivate throughout my life. Part of my success in sustaining this reading habit was because I really looked forward to reading it every day. Why? Becuase there were so many days that it said exactly what I needed to hear that day!
Seriously, I can’t tell you how many times I finished the day’s reading and thought to myself, “holy cow… I’m pretty sure the author wrote this specifically for me and my struggles today!”
Wait… I can tell you how many times! Those always ended up being my favorites and I dog-earred them…. *drumroll*…. 34 folded corners. So at bare minimum there were 34 days this year that blew me away on a personal level because the reading spoke directly to the root of an issue I was facing that day. Those are some pretty good statistics, I think. And it doesn’t even take into account how many times I underlined things!
So I seriously cannot recommend this book enough!
If you’re looking for a short and sweet devotional for this coming year, check out Streams in the Desert by L.B. Cowman. It might just be the daily dose of truth and peace you need for your current season of life. And as we all know, every season of life has it’s struggles. Some more than others.
This isn’t one of those daily devotionals that’s just feel-good fluff and glittery rainbows. It’s not a fortune cookie or a “prosperity gospel” book that makes it sound like the Christian walk will be the perfect life full of blessings and void of struggles. No. Streams in the Desert is chock-full of God’s Word, God’s truth, and God’s promises to us during our struggles.
Does God’s truth make us feel good? Yes. Is He promising us an easy walk? No. He only promises that He is with us every step of the way, giving us His strength and comfort.
Something I really love about Streams in the Desert is that it’s written in a very general way. It is not specific to any one struggle, trial, or pain. The words are universal just as God’s Scripture is universal. Therefore, I am confident that the readings can speak truth and peace into your current situation, just as it spoke into mine.
You might like this book if you:
- Like to read
- Don’t like to read – it’s only one, tiny page each day.
- Are a Christian and are looking for your next devotional book.
- Are not a Christian, but you want to find out more about who God is.
- Have a struggle in your life and want to learn about what God says about pain/trials/struggles.
- Want to build a daily habit of spending time with God.
- Want something that just takes a few minutes a day.
- Have a hard time sticking to a reading habit and need something that’s easy to catch up on, if you get behind.
- Have an upredictable schedule and you need something easy to fit here-or-there wherever it works.
- Want a book that you can start any time of year – the pages are dated and you can start on any day!
- Want a book with an index in the back so you can look up a topic that’s on your mind.
- Like small books that don’t take up much space.
- Like books that have a little ribbon bookmark attached.
Below is a link to Streams in the Desert on Amazon. I also included a link to my favorite pens for this book. I love them because they dry quickly and don’t bleed through the really thin pages. This year, I went through the book with a black Sharpie pen. But I’ll use a different color next time I read it (because I definitely want to read it again). That way, I can see what stands out to me from one year to the next!
Blessings to you on this New Year’s Eve!
I hope that you get to make some exciting New Year’s goals. And even if you don’t complete them, I hope you remember that you always have an ultimate fresh start in Jesus. Your human nature is wired to crave newness and wholeness, and God offers that to you each and every day.
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for His compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;
therefore I will wait for Him”
Lamentations 3:22-24
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