Will Tomorrow Be Different?

            It was a New Year’s Eve.  The winter sky was clear and the evening air crisp as little Tommy and his parents walked hand in hand toward the lighted church at the far end of the street.

            After several moments of thoughtful silence the boy looked up at his mother and earnestly inquired:  “Mommy, will tomorrow really be different?”

            Not sure what was in the youngster’s mind, his mother replied:  “Why—what do you mean?”            “When Daddy was reading at the supper table tonight,”  Tommy explained, “he said that tomorrow God would give us a brand new year… Will He?”

            “Yes, dear.  It will be a brand new year,”  she assured the inquiring 5-year-old.

            Tommy thought a while and then, with the brilliant insight reserved only for candidates for kindergarten, he inquired eagerly:  “Well, if it’s new, will it be different?”

            Perhaps each of us would do well to ponder Tommy’s question on our way to church this New Year’s Eve.  Will the brand new year that lies ahead be any different from the old?  Or will it be merely a carbon copy, a repeat, a rerun of the year now coming to an end?

            Our heavenly Father does not expect the new year to be the same as the old.  Not for those who will spend the new year in the spiritual fellowship of His Son!  For them He expects the coming year to be not only new but also different. 

            He expects next year to be different for you and me, because we are to “grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ”  (2 Peter 3:18).  We are to “grow up into Him … which is the Head, even Christ.”  (Eph. 4:15)

            For those who are growing up in Christ the future can never be exactly the same as the past.  Each day, each year is different.  Each day, each year is richer in the personal experience of His grace.  For with every passing scene of life the believer is growing up into the stature of Jesus Christ, His Savior. 

            And so, to little Tommy’s question we would answer:  Yes, Tommy, the brand new year which God will give us will be different.  It will be different because you and I and all who believe in Jesus are going to do everything we possibly can, with God’s help, to make it different.

            (Devotion taken from, “Give Your Life a Lift” by Herman Gockel)