New

I love this time of year.  Baseball overlaps football. The leaves on the trees start to get cranky. Yellow school buses fill the morning and afternoon streets.  I saw a few of them on the way to the office this morning.  I thought of Eleanor and bus 493. They were both something!

Late August always gives me butterflies.  Ever years it makes me think back on the twelve "first days" I had as a public school student in Meridian, Mississippi. Those new days still stick with me. The first day of something new is filled with excitement, hope, and fear. What a gift. 

We serve the God of new things.  He is working his good pleasure in all of our lives and we need to celebrate it.  New seasons are still occasions for hope, excitement, and a dose of healthy fear.Well maybe not fear but at the very least some focused sobriety.

Here's my challenge for you today.  Get a few #2 Ticonderoga pencils and sharpen them yourself. Breath in a good smell of the tip. Find some wide ruled loose leaf paper. You may have to buy some or borrow it from a kid. Write out a prayer of gratitude for the new things God is doing in your life. You may need to ask him to show you the way.

"So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new" 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NRSV).