New Beginnings

This week two of my friends were made redundant. The huge uncertainty looms large. The loss of income, place, and belonging leaves them shaken. An entrepreneur who lost his business and home this year told me the most difficult aspect was not knowing where ‘rock bottom’ would be - how much more was there still to lose? Transitioning is never easy, particularly when it is not due to our own choice, but something that is decided for us. We would love all that is good to last…

And yet, we know that to everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven. It includes a time to pluck up what is planted and a time to lose (Ecclesiastes 3).

The author of this book does not only sketch a seasonal perspective, but also paints the bigger picture that overarches every season. “God has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men. Yet, they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”

And that’s it. We don’t always understand. We cannot always see the end. At times we can’t even see the new beginning. But like winter is followed by spring, a new season will come. The rhythm of life will continue. In the bleaker winter of life, we remember that the seeds are already lying dormant, waiting to sprout in spring.

In the moment of crisis, directions may become unclear and may even be contradictory. It is quite an art to live wisely and recognise new beginnings. For what is new won’t usually be announced by the appearance of angels and bright stars in the sky. Life is more subtle than that.

“There are journeys we have begun that have brought us greater riches and refinement; but we had to travel through dark valleys of difficulty and suffering,” writes John O’Donohue in Benedictus. “Beginnings are new horizons that want to be seen; they are not regressions or repetitions.”

The New Year will include thresholds of change we had not anticipated, opportune times within life’s chronology. It requires minds that are open to new frontiers and courage to shape new landscapes. It needs the perceptive to recognise the new things that God is doing. And it presumes time to watch, listen and learn (Isaiah 43:19, 50:4).

"In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists." (Eric Hoffer)

May we be sensitive in the year ahead to the earth’s new shoots and heaven’s whispers. As Martin Luther King said, we may not know what the future holds, but we do know who holds the future. May our God who has made everything beautiful in its time and who set eternity in our hearts, give us courage and an inquisitive mind for the new year.

This article first appeared on the Friday Night Theology website, authored by Marijke Hoek - Coordinator Forum for Change