Image of a woman breathing in the sunshine

Breathe out the past!

Eric Gaudion encourages us to release the past and embrace God's renewing breath as we step confidently into a year of hope and transformation.

The end of another year has given us the opportunity to let go of the past with its trials as well as its triumphs.

Letting the past go does not mean losing its lessons or the sweet memories of better days. Nor does it mean ignoring its place in the story of our lives. Rather, we turn away from the past with our faces lit and warmed by the sunshine of hope.

Each New Year is an opportunity to start again, to turn the page, smoothing it down with compassion and choosing to say “God is in charge” as we start writing a new chapter. It gives us the opportunity to put away the problems and sorrows of the past year. It is an annual reminder that we are constantly being changed to conform to the image of Christ.

Yet I am keenly aware that for some this is not an easy thing to do. Many are in pain of all kinds and for some 2024 was a really tough year. New Year is certainly not everybody’s favourite festival!

Mark Twain had no time for this season, despising it as “a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, friendly calls and humbug resolutions.” Well, I for one think he was wrong – about the resolutions at least. I have set my goals for this year with the usual hopeful attitude of the child at school who is given a brand-new exercise book to make his or her mark on.

Even I have to admit, though, that it can be discouraging to discover year by year how little time it takes for our New Year’s resolutions to be bent, broken or forgotten – like so many of the toys that were unwrapped on Christmas morning.

What I really need is a reminder that I can’t do this thing called life without God’s help. The apostle Paul said that he could do all things through Christ who gave him strength (Phil 4:13) and that gives me hope for the coming year because if he could, then perhaps I can too.

Letting go of the past, though, is not a mere midnight moment, crossing arms with strangers as we join in maudlin seasonal songs. No, it’s a journey. It can begin at any time, but it will need daily replenishment. There is an illustration of this principle in the act of breathing. We can’t hold on to our last breath for long. Good as it was, we must let it go and inhale something fresh, new and life-giving. Or if our last intake of air was marred by smoke and the particles of friction, we must turn to a new source of oxygen that can cleanse and renew. But we must keep breathing.

Like breathing, life is not a rehearsal, it’s the only way to survive, and demands that we keep moving forward. But we can’t do this alone. The Holy Spirit is pictured as God’s powerful and creative breath in the Scriptures, so we acknowledge that we need his help. In the words of the old prayer chorus, we pray, “Breathe on me breath of God, fill me with life anew.”

Paul seems to take a similar view in Philippians 3:13-14 where he says, “I focus on this one thing: forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.”

As you embark on another year, I pray that your troubles will last no longer than your resolutions, and that you will discover that the Lord loves you and can give you the new start you long for.

Breathe out the old year with its pain and trouble. Breathe in the blessing and renewal of God for 2025.

 


This article first appeared in Direction Magazine. For further details, please click here.

 
 
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