Lord willing, this year I will be entering a new decade of life. And with that comes excitement, reflection, and enough discouragement and disappointment to taint the first two.

When we are entering our twenties, the whole world of possibilities is open to us, and we dream with abandon. 

In our thirties, most likely we have narrowed our career opportunities down, having tried and jettisoned various options.

Our forties? We have probably settled into a career and are now looking to move forward and make our mark.

But somewhere around fifty and as we grow older, we begin to realize that perhaps there is not enough time to do all that we had hoped to do. We remember lost opportunities, opportunities that never materialized in the first place, or those that we might now be too old to pursue. These reflections only increase as the years past. And sometimes we feel a bit like a failure, like we really haven’t accomplished much over the years.

But . . .

One of the most beloved Christmas movies is It’s a Wonderful Life — the story of a young man who because of life circumstances and personal decisions is derailed  from his life’s dreams and puts him on a path he hadn’t wanted to take. As his career crumbles around him because of someone else’s actions, the weight of this failure crushes him, and he decides the world would be better off without him, so he resolves to jump off the bridge into the swirling river below. Until . . . Clarence.

We all know the story. Clarence reruns his life for him, and even though it was not the one he had hoped and dreamed of, there was no mistaking that the life he did live, the decisions he did make, the person he did become was invaluable to those around him.

Wherever we are in life—whatever age —whatever circumstances—we need to remember that nothing is wasted with God. He uses everything to either bring us to Him or to sanctify us and bring Himself glory.

We need to remember that what we deem as lost opportunities have been either redesigned into new opportunities or were the original opportunities to begin with.

Remember Jeremiah 29:11 states that just as He had with the Israelites, He knows the plans has for us, “plans to prosper [us] and not to harm [us], plans to give [us] hope and a future.”

And perhaps we need to be reminded of Proverbs 19:21 as well that says, ”Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.”

As 2025 ends, let's not look back over the year or years with disappointment on what didn’t happen. Instead, let's praise God for what He has done and the role we played even if we are not aware of it. 

And as 2026 unfolds let’s remember "We can make our plans, but the LORD determines our steps” Proverbs 16:9.

Happy New Year!

The year is coming to a close, and now is the time that networks put together the most newsworthy stories of the year, report on the movies, books, and people of the year, and basically summarize the best and worst that has happened over the last 365 days.

In the world of lexicology, makers of dictionaries decide on their word of the year. 

For 2025, Merriam-Webster chose “slop” — “the digital content of low quality, often AI-generated, that floods screens with junk, fake news, and absurd visuals.” They chose this word because it “reflects the pervasive, annoying, yet sometimes consumed, look of AI-produced digital noise.”

Oxford University press chose “Rage Bait”— “Content designed to provoke anger or outrage for traffic and engagement” because over 30,000 people voted for it “to highlight online frustration.”

dictionary.com chose “Agentic”— and Collins Dictionary “Vibe Coding” both dealing with AI’s growing influence in our lives.

Though the last two may sound innocuous, the first two definitely convey frustration and anger. 

What a way to end 2025. And no way to enter 2026. 

God never intended words to be reactive but rather proactive and productive. After all, he spoke the world into existence with the Word, and, as we learn in John 1:1, that Word was Jesus.

Throughout the Bible we are reminded of the power of the tongue (Proverbs 18:21) and that our words should be wholesome and used for good (Ephesians 4:29)..

My sister is creating journals to help people achieve their goals for the year and an important step is to select a word of the year. This word will provide a foundation for their goal, remind them of the direction they want to go, ground them, and motivate them.

Remember words do have power.

As you enter 2026, why don’t you select one word that you would like to hang your hat on this year. One word that encapsulates what you most want to accomplish this year, whether that be physically, financially, spiritually, or any other area of your life—a word that will both encourage you and realign you when you lose your focus. 

​Happy New Year and happy choosing.

My sister just bought a home. She purchased it, and now it is hers.

But it needs a bit of work before she moves in, so family and friends have rallied around her to help clean, paint, replace outlets and lights, and lay down new flooring.

Though these endeavors are necessary to move in, they won’t be the end of it, for, as we all know, homes are a work in progress. 

But my sister has a vision of what her home will look like in the future, and she knows it will take a lot more time, but already it is beginning to look beautiful; however, this transformation hasn’t come without a few sore muscles. 

This is a very poor analogy, but as we near Christmas, I am reminded that the whole reason Jesus came to earth was to ultimately purchase us with a price, (1 Corinthians 6:20) and that price was the shedding of his blood.

And once we decide we don’t want to belong to the prince of this earth, that we desire what God has to offer instead, our for sale sign goes up and the sold sign immediately covers it. We have a new owner. We now belong to God, and with one stroke, He washes us clean. 

But that doesn’t mean there still isn’t work to do. God’s vision for us doesn’t come without a few sore muscles. We have old habits to break and new ones to develop; apologies and restorations to make and new ventures to pursue—not to earn our salvation but to work out our sanctification with the help of the Holy Spirit, who nudges, convicts, encourages and transforms.

And just as my sister will see improvements over the years as she invests time, money, and energy into home improvements, so should we and others see proof of our becoming more Christlike as we submit to the working of the Holy Spirit. 

Pantone is the name in color. In business since 1999, they are known for their Matching System “a proprietary color naming system used in graphic design, fashion design, product design, printing, and manufacturing.” They have more than 15,000 colors across these different industries.

This year, the Pantone color of the year is Cloud Dancer, “ a soft structural neutral designed to let every other color shine." It  is “the first time the global color authority has chosen a white hue” and it is described as a “billowy, balanced white . . . intended to be a ‘whisper of calm in a noisy world,’ reflecting a cultural desire for quiet reflection and a sense of serenity in a frenetic society.” (NBC news)

Interesting, isn't it? We crave quiet. We crave calm. We crave peace. And we look for it everywhere. Now in a color.

Granted there is much we can do to promote a sense of calm and serenity in our environment, and I know through experience that color is one of them. (My first year of teaching I covered one entire wall with red butcher paper. NEVER AGAIN!)

Yet while Cloud Dancer may be soothing, and understated, and light and airy, and may for a moment provide a sense of peace, we know that it cannot deliver permanent peace. 

During this Advent season, when we sing of Peace on Earth and Good Will Toward Men, we need to remember what Jesus said in John 14:27 — that he is the only source of true and lasting peace. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives.”

This peace he is talking about is the gift of the Holy Spirit—the third member of the Trinity. God the father reigns. God the Son manifested God to man and provided the way of salvation, and God the Holy Spirit lives within us—to convict us of our sin, to provide guidance and encouragement, to lead us into truth with the end result being peace. True and lasting peace. Eternal peace.

So while the world keeps looking for and trying different ways to create peace in a frenetic world, let’s choose the only eternal peace available—submission and reliance on the Almighty Triune God.

I’m excited.

I now have new custom-built bookshelves put in my office. I have wanted these for years, and, finally, I was able to do it.

However, this meant that I had a bit of work to do. And as anyone who has taken on a new building project knows — one thing leads to another.

I moved all the books and pictures and paraphernalia out of the old cases into the extra room. Then I decided to move the  set of stacking shelves (one half of which were cubbies) into the closet. Well, this meant that the closet now had to be emptied (more stuff in the extra room) and the clothes culled as I would be losing about one third of my closet space. 

Once everything was out, I was all ready to move the cubby/shelving into the closet but then I saw the closet walls. They were a mess. I toyed with the idea of just leaving them. After all, the minute the shelves and the clothes were back in, all would be hidden. But I knew the state it was in.

So I taped it off and headed for Home Depot for the needed paint and then got to work. 

When it was dry, I started moving things back in, but I was very selective on what went back into that closet. I didn’t want the clutter of unused items again!

If we are not careful, our spiritual lives can go the way of my cluttered closet. The more we let in of the world, the more lost is our relationship with God in the chaos. 

The more time spent on streaming and gaming, the less time in God’s word.

The more time spent on our own interests, the less time we have for sharing God’s love with those around us.

The more time we allow ungodly thoughts and words to percolate in us, the less room there is for God’s thoughts and words.

And it’s what’s deep within us that God cares most about: our hearts and thoughts that then produce our words and actions.

Sure we could cover it all up, be “whitewashed sepulchers,” but we would still know the dirt is there and, more importantly, God knows.

As the year comes to a close, let’s all do a little deep cleaning: let’s sort out what to keep in our lives and what to jettison; let’s confess and repent of those thoughts and actions that are ungodly and displeasing to God and destructive for us. And let’s remember what John told us in 1John 1:9: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

​Now that’s the kind of deep cleaning we all need.