December 31, 2025
Happy New Years Eve! You might be reading this in 2026, or still in the last few hours of 2025. As I begin to write this last blog of the year (quite literally), I am thankful for many things. Here’s a silly one for example. As I type, we’re watching the Cotton Bowl, and the first half just came to an end. Ohio State’s down 14-0 to Miami, with a missed field goal with just one second left in the half. With 30 more playing minutes to remain, wouldn’t it be wonderful if the Buckeyes lost the game? I might just give thanks if OSU gets knocked out of the College Football playoffs. Okay…. Let’s not be so silly, Jason. Still….. Hahahaha!!!!
We make a HUGE deal about the New Year —parties, celebrations, family gatherings and the like. I think all those things are all great. Truly, I do! One year ago, tonight, my wife and I gathered with local friends. That party was a total hoot. This year though, we’re staying home; and for me personally, that’s great too.
It might sound like a party-pooper thing to do, but we kinda like ringing in the new year in our jammies while vegging on the couch. Truthfully, for more years than I can count, I haven’t even made it until midnight before I’ve zonked for the night.
Am I downer to say that December 31 is just another day? How about January 1, while we’re at it? While tomorrow is January 1, in all reality, that’s just another day too. I know, I’m a poo-stink. But, just think about it….
From a cosmological perspective, outside planet earth, who’d know that today is the end of one year and tomorrow the beginning of another? I’m mean; I guess heaven knows. But even in that, “The New Year” from a biblical perspective won’t happen again until September 11, 2026.
Per Wikipedia, that bastion of ALL knowledge, “Rosh Hashanah is the New Year in Judaism… It is the first of the High Holy Days, as specified by Leviticus 23:23–25, that occur in the late summer/early autumn of the Northern Hemisphere.” So, while we westerners are ringing in Ceasar’s New Year tonight, the New Year from a heavenly perspective is technically nine months from now. God ordained it, after all.
Here’s the point I’m trying to make: every day is another day, and every year is another year to give thanks. I try to make a habit of thanking the Lord every night for the day he’s given. Every day is another day to give thanks; and every day is another day to be a blessing to someone, even if that someone is your friend, child, parent or spouse. (I haven’t left the house today, so I’ve tried to be a blessing to my wife: doing chores, making super, and more.
In that same vein, providing God doesn’t take me tonight, tomorrow will be the dawn of another year, and the opportunity to thank God for what he’d done in 2025. In these last few hours of this 2025 year of our Lord, consider all that God has done. Could you list them all? I know I can’t. He’s given me 365 days of life and breath; a great calling and the best of jobs; he’s blessed us with a new son-in-law, and more friends. He put a new car in our garage and continued good health. I could go on and on and on. The reality is, the number of things to give thanks for might be too numerous too count. (I guess we’ll find out one year from now).
My friends, I pray that you have a blessed New Year. I pray that God give us all many more days and many more years to thank the Lord our God for “another day, and another (new) year.”
May the LORD bless you and keep you. May the LORD make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you; and may the LORD lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace."