Well, it's 2024, and many people have made New Year's resolutions and are trying to make this year better than 2023. Although some people do make changes around the New Year and do stick to their resolutions, life isn't always that easy to plan and navigate. In reality, life happens to all of us. Overdue bills, sickness, disease, death, and car accidents. Even for believers in Jesus, not all will go well. So, with this in mind, I will attempt to encourage you and myself.
When I think of new beginnings, I'm reminded that new beginnings can come into our lives as a result of our making changes on purpose-like a desire to change our diet or get more exercise. Or read the Holy Scriptures more. Or listen to the stories of our families more. Or get involved in our communities in a more positive light.
These are all choices we make as a result of wanting change that's in our capacity to change.
I'm experiencing that right now in my life with regards to finally finishing my doctoral work and gearing up to do more work with the local church and relationships with my fellow Indigenous people. More specifically, where possible, I want to create better relationships between settler people and my Néhiyaw (Cree) people-connecting myself to the local people in whatever way each congregation wants to be involved with me as an ambassador and advisor of relations between the two groups of people.
Other things that happen force us to have a new beginning in an area of our lives. This happened for me when my 22-year-old daughter passed away of cancer in September 2023. As I've gone through the grieving process, and will continue to do so, there's a balance in keeping the memory of her alive. Yet, I must also move forward, knowing these circumstances were well beyond my control. All I could do was do my best in supporting my daughter as she went through this ordeal-which I'm glad I did.
Sometimes other people may get laid off from their job and sometimes even get fired for whatever reason. This type of change forces a person to go out and find a new job and sometimes this leads to a new career path. Maybe going back to school for more education or job training. Nowadays, you can find a new career through job training in as little as a year or two. A new, well-paying career doesn't always involve going to university for four or seven years. It all depends on what a person wants to do and likes to do.
In our ancient scriptures, 1 Peter 1: 3–4 says, "All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation, and we have a priceless inheritance-an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay."
When we become born-again believers in Jesus, we can live with a great expectation of our priceless inheritance that is kept in heaven for us-an inheritance that can't be affected by change or decay. This is the underlying reason why we have a new beginning in general in life. Then, every time we come across a new challenge, we can go back to this promise as we start a new chapter in our lives.
Going back to a passage like this can bring healing to our hearts. It can give us the focus we need that won't come from anywhere else. Positive thinking won't bring you this promise. Job training won't bring you this promise. A promotion at work won't give you this promise. It can only come from God's promises in His Word. From His heart to ours.
What challenges do you have this New Year? Are they challenges brought from your own motivation to want change, or did something like a death or diagnoses of a terminal illness bring this on?
Either way, we can go to the Scriptures and find hope and healing for our troubled hearts. Run into the arms of God's Word, because by doing that you find hope and healing for this life and the one to come. That to me is a great new beginning.
Parry Stelter is originally from Alexandar First Nation, which is part of Treaty Six Territory. He's pastor, author, speaker, preacher, Bible teacher, chaplain, blanket exercise facilitator and workshop facilitator.
