New Beginnings

I woke up this morning with a sense of newness. I feel it is a day of new beginnings.

I got home on Saturday night after two weeks in Philadelphia. I had the privilege this summer to speak at Ridgecrest, NC, New Orleans, LA, Panama City Beach, FL, and Philadelphia, PA. During these six weeks of student camps, I have spoken to several thousand students from across the entire country. I consider it a special privilege to have that opportunity. When I woke up this morning, with nowhere to travel, I finally realized the finality of camp for the summer. It gave me a sense of newness. A new chapter and season for the year is beginning. 

Then yesterday at church, we had an all-day going away party for  Robbie and Tiffany Cheuvront. Robbie has been our worship leader since the Journey started eights years ago. He has been there through every up and down. He will always be a dear friend. He preached at the morning services, then we had a praise and worship night in the evening. Saying it was a great night is an understatement. We all sang praises to God, with gratitude in our hearts. We spoke a lot of words about our love for Robbie and the Cheuvront family. Those words cannot capture the actual sentiments. When I woke up this morning, realizing Robbie was not going to be leading worship this Sunday, I felt a sense of newness. I am sad, but today feels like a new beginning, a new chapter. 

This got my mind thinking about new chapters in our lives. We all have those seasons of change. It may be a new job, a new child, a new home, or some other change. There are two major things that I think are important to remember during these new beginnings:

1. Give thanks to God for the previous season. 

Take time to take inventory of the way God has blessed your previous season or chapter of life. Sit down and reflect on the different experiences that the chapter brought into your life. Before simply moving to the next season of life, it is helpful to contemplate the previous season. 

2. Anticipate what God has coming.

New seasons can be scary because there are a lot of unknowns. However, we must trust that God is in control of those new seasons, just as He was the previous ones. We need to anticipate what God is going to do in the new chapters of our lives.

Things do not stay the same. Things change. It is not always a fun experience, but it is a certain reality. Rather than resisting change, we should be grateful for the seasons. These are the chapters that make up the story of our lives.