It may be a one-day calendar on your desk, or a weekly calendar in your purse, or a monthly calendar hanging on the wall, but no matter what kind of calendar you use, today marks the turning of a page. A single page. The one-day calendar goes from December 31, 2024, to January 1, 2025; the monthly calendar goes from December 2024, to January, 2025. Regardless of which you use, today simply marks the turning of a page – one page – nothing more and nothing less.

None of us knows what the days of 2025 will bring our way. Each day brings its own share of certainties and uncertainties. There are things that we will all assume will happen – even though there is no guarantee that they will – and there are things that may catch us completely off-guard. A daily task is to maneuver through each day as best we can, accepting those things for which we are prepared, and responding to those things that catch us by surprise.

Perhaps one thing that will help us with this task is to remember that every day is a gift from God. The psalmist said, “This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” This day, and every day, is a gift from the Lord. Each day that we live is a precious gift from God.

But today we are thinking about the gift of life itself. Your life, my life, is a gift from God. We are His craftsmanship – created by Him, and for Him. Our lives are to be lived to His glory. So, the turning of the page of the calendar marks another day that He has made, and given to us to use for His glory and praise.

Your life is God’s gift to you; what you do with it is your gift to Him.

Someone made the following statement: Your life is God’s gift to you; what you do with it is your gift to Him. This is a statement that we would do well to commit to memory and rehearse in our minds throughout each day that we live. My life is a gift of God. Each individual day that I live is a gift of God. Each breath that I take is a gift of God. Every sunrise and sunset that I see is a gift of God. The sustaining of my life for yet another day is a gift of God.

Now, what will I do with this precious gift? That choice is mine – and yours. Each day offers me yet another opportunity to give my life to Him, or to hoard it all to myself. I can go selfishly through life, making every day all about me, or I can go selflessly through life, giving my life in surrender to Him, making it all about Him and using every moment to bring glory to His name.

Perhaps we could all start on this very first day of 2025 by offering today, January 1, to God. Perhaps we could make it a habit of doing that every day, at the very beginning of each day. Perhaps we could verbally say to Him, “Lord, I acknowledge that this is yet another day that You have made, and that You have granted me the gift of this day to use in whatever way I choose. So, I choose to gift this day back to You. Bring whatever You desire into my experience today and enable me to use it all for Your glory. I choose today to yield myself to You so that others might see You working through me, and that I could be a living testimony to Your grace.”

So today I say, “Happy New Day,” a day that the Lord has made and given to each of us. Let’s use today for Him, and tomorrow let’s do it all over again, and the next day, and the next, and – well, you get the picture. I pray that the days of 2025 will be vehicles through which He might use each of us to serve His purposes, and to bring Him glory.

And, yes – Happy New Year, everyone!

Until next time:

Blessings!