When I was a little boy, a sheet of clean, white paper would keep me busy for hours.  I could draw a picture, make an airplane, cut out a snowflake—the sky was the limit.  I still like blank sheets of paper.  Now I write books and articles on them. 

Do you remember your first day of school when you proudly showed up with a new box of crayons, new pencils with sharp points and erasers (you had chewed off the erasers from your pencils at home)?  I never had a fancy pencil case; I kept my supplies in a cigar box.  But I didn’t care, they were new and they were mine. 

I remember wearing new shoes and, at first at least, being careful so I wouldn’t scuff the toes.  But before long the new shoes were scraped all over from repeated dragging on the sidewalk.  How else could I stop my bicycle when the chain was broken?

And who doesn’t enjoy the smell of a new car?  Even when your old car has high mileage, you can buy a can of auto air freshener with a new car scent!  It may be just an illusion but at least it smells new.

I have to admit there is charm and value in an antique.  But there’s a special feeling when something is new.  Maybe this is because when we acquire something new its history begins with us.  It has no past and now we are in command of its future.  It becomes truly ours and no one else’s.

Have you ever considered that God enjoys giving us new things?  For instance, He gives us new days, new weeks, new months, and new years.  Every time your birthday rolls around, an untried year lies before you.  You’ve never been there before.

We don’t know all that this new year will bring.  Because God knows that thinking of a new year all at one time might overwhelm us, He has broken it down into 365 bite-sized pieces. 

Let me go back in time again.  When I was just a little guy, I liked to color the pictures in new coloring books, especially if I were using sharp, new crayons.  But, in my inexperience, I often scribbled outside the lines or broke my crayons.  I remember how badly I felt when that happened.  I tried hard but made mistakes; and when this happened the coloring book would begin to look messy.

Sometimes I even became frustrated and threw the book down and said to anyone who was listening that I would never color another picture.  But I soon learned to turn the page and try coloring again.  Of course, I didn’t know it at the time, but that was a lesson in life that God wants all of us to learn.

Birthdays are our milestones.  We start off another year with high hopes and plans of what we want to accomplish.  But then in our carelessness we may scribble outside the lines.  Maybe we even break our crayon.  We may become discouraged and want to quit.  We might even blame others and think, What’s the use of trying?

But there’s hope for us.  God wants to hand us another crayon.  Just think: every day that the sun rises, God is telling you, “I’m here to help you.  Turn the page and try again.”

If we ask Him, He will take our smudged and stained day.  He will erase (forgive) our mistakes (1 John 1:9) and give us another day--clean and pristine, ready for us to try again to make something beautiful.  Every day is a new start.  This is called living one day at a time.  But more than that, the Bible tells us to forget those things which are behind, to reach for those things which are ahead, and to press onward (Philippians 3:13, 14).

Here’s a suggestion from our great God to take with you into your next year.  It’s a Bible verse that’s a promise of something new for you.  You may want to print this verse on a card and stick it on your refrigerator:  “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Thy faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22, 23, RSV).