A new calendar doesn’t change your life …

People who do little with their lives are often scoffers of celebrating a New Year. Well, they’re right about one thing — a new calendar doesn’t change your life.

Whether you use a digital calendar, still use a Franklin Planner, or have a calendar hanging in the kitchen, just flipping the page from 2019 to 2020 doesn’t mean there’s a “new you,” much less an improved one.

From the time the ball drops in Times Square, to it becoming 12:01 a.m., nothing magically changed about you!

What has changed, if you’re still breathing, is that God has graced you with a New Year. Whether you’ll have the opportunity to finish the year will be up to God, but what you do with yourself during the New Year you’ve been given is a partnership between you and God (at least, it’s supposed to be) …

“We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps,” Proverbs 16:9.

Many of us launch out into new years with all kinds of plans, but what will have great impact on those plans are the opportunities we are able to create or God places on our path.

That reminds me of a story told by actor Michael Caine. Caine is quite humble when he tells about how he got his first break in acting. As a struggling unknown, he once went to the last resort of starving actors: a casting agency run by a man named Ronnie Curtis. As Caine tells it:

“Ronnie was very cross-eyed, so when he came out, pointed at us and said, ‘You’ – three of us stood up. This did not seem to throw him at all – I suppose he was used to it. Then he asked, ‘What size is your chest?’ Each of us still thought he was addressing us alone, so we answered in unison with our chest sizes. ‘Who said forty?’ he asked, and I put my hand up. Now I knew how Marilyn Monroe felt. ‘What’s your inside leg measurement?’ he demanded. ‘Thirty-two,’ I replied. His eyes lit up. ‘Perfect. Come on,’ he said, beckoning me into his small office.

“When I got inside he explained that I would be playing a policeman in a small film the next day. I had been cast because I fit the uniform that the company already had in their wardrobe.”

Sometimes, our plans and circumstances mesh and dreams come true quickly. At other times, we have to work at creating opportunities to move forward; and what happens so many times, God will place opportunities we never dreamed of in front of us, and we’re off on a new adventure — or new trial!

If you want your self and/or your circumstances to be different this year, you’ll have to take action toward creating that change. And God, who is always present and has an even more perfect plan for you, will bring along opportunities for fulfilling His will for you and for bringing Him glory — you’ll need to be alert for these opportunities as they come along.

Here’s wishing you a happy and blessed New Year!

Scotty