New Beginnings

It’s the start of the new school year – every year school children and students get a new start going into a new year group, often with new teachers. At our service on Sunday morning we marked the new year by blessing school and college backpacks for the year ahead.  

Adults don’t usually get such frequent opportunities for a new start but the new academic year is a good chance for all of us to think about new beginnings. At the service we were invited to think about what we might let go of and something new we wanted to hold before God. I spent the afternoon sorting out at home and taking a car load to the tip – letting go of a lot of things that seemed important when I put them in the loft but don’t any more. This included a video player that didn’t work and a box of videos I have no means to play. It wasn’t hard to let go of those!  

It’s often harder to let go of feelings, assumptions and ways of living that were useful or right for us in the past but aren’t any more. In Ezekiel there are several references to God giving his people a new heart and a new spirit. Maybe you feel there is no new start or change for you - your job rolls on, you live in the same place, have the same friends and family and follow the same routine as last year and the year before, and the year before that. But God invites us all put on a new heart and a new spirit – maybe deepening our relationship with God and others or serving God in new ways. 

Create in me a clean heart, O God,

  and put a new and right spirit within me.

Do not cast me away from your presence,

  and do not take your holy spirit from me. 

Restore to me the joy of your salvation,

  and sustain in me a willing spirit.

Psalm 51: 10-12