A new year hasn’t brought as much change as I’d hoped it might as we came to the end of a hard 2020. What has been your experience? I can’t think of anyone who predicted a year ago what we would be facing and experiencing today. Sometimes I feel like a blind man being led somewhere I’ve never been. Does that sound familiar?

That’s why I was so helped when I recently read one of the prophecies of Isaiah that said something along the same lines:

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Today is a new day, a new year, and a new decade all at once. So much “new.” The kingdom of God is like that. So much new--renewal, restoration, refreshment, new life. 

One of the ways I’ve been feeling this lately is in the spirit of Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians: 

“Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day (4:16).” 

Wasting away seems like pretty strong language for the realities of aging, but I have...