There is a time for everything…a time to plant and a time to uproot…a time to tear down and a time to build…a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them…a time to search and a time to give up…a time to keep and a time to throw away…a time to be silent and a time to speak…                                           Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

I am a traditionalist.  I may have said that before.  I really mean it.  I like for things to stay the same, feel the same, include the same people and events.  If the option were available, I’d be hunting Easter eggs in my jammies in my dad’s back yard this April.  Love me some traditions, even long after love for the tradition itself has died.

Most people don’t like change.  I used to hate it, that fits with the traditionalist in me.

But in the grand tradition of this very thought, I have changed and I now love and embrace change.  Every day is a change from the last.  Every season brings the excitement of what newness the winds will usher in.  There are no stagnant days in man’s life, they are always changing–babies grow, the clock winds down in just the way it wound up, the cycle simply finding it’s corresponding downhill of decline to the uphill of maturation. His mercies are new every morning.  Why do they need to be new?  Because the life you faced yesterday doesn’t look like the life that you will encounter today.  Yesterday’s manna will not stave off your hunger today.  Life is new, your needs are new, your task is new, His provision is new.  Because today is different from yesterday, life is ever changing.

I wouldn’t call myself a resolution maker, but I pretty much always think like one around this time of year.  I reassess life and schedule, dreams, desires, and agendas.  There are petty things one might ponder in this vein.  And then there are those that are not.

It is unwise to approach a new year or a new day without first conceding that God may have a plan for you in it.  He does.  And if we approach today just as we did yesterday, we may not be looking for the new plan He’s waiting for us to jump on board with.

This year I may need to let go.  I may be called to gather stones.  I may need to set aside some time for tearing down, giving up, and throwing away.  I may need to prepare my heart to be willing to do that.  God may say, “Let’s build something new today!”  God may say it’s time to cry, but hope dawns in the morning.  I may be asked to lead a war.

But if I face the day just as though it were a replica of the last, I’m unlikely to notice that the schedule has changed.

My husband wakes up every morning at just about the exact same time, work day or vacation, weekday or weekend.  It’s what his body has become accustomed to. Some things we do because that’s what we’ve done forever.  Some things we don’t really think about, we just find ourselves in the middle of doing…again.

May our lives be intentional, not merely familiar.

Every morning in the car I thank the Lord for the fact that today’s weather is never quite the same as yesterdays.  Today’s is something beautiful.  Change can be beautiful.  It’s only harsh and unattractive when we see it from behind the fingers of eye-covering hands.

There is a time today.  There is a time for us to lay down yesterday, to pick up on His plan for today, and to open our arms wide to the adventure that He has in store.

Do you have the time?