By Bola BOLAWOLE
HOW MANY people know the difference between another year and a new year?
When, on the eve of a new year we shout: “Happy New Year!”, how many have an understanding whether the new year they are ushering in will be just “another” year or they actually want it to be a “new” year different in many respects from the outgoing year?
Someone said the new year, much like birthdays, should be celebrated with all sobrieties because they move us closer to the grave!
Rather than say “I am a year older today”, we ought to say that we are a year closer to our grave!
This must be what scripture means when it admonishes us in Psalm 90:12 : “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom”
Many rejoice at the prospect of escaping the outgoing year because of the calamities, frustrations, and disappointments it might have visited on them. So, it is good riddance to bad rubbish!
For others, it is not themselves but others that have been so unfortunate. Therefore, they give thanks that they did not partake in the troubles that were the lot of others. New year offers an opportunity to make good what went wrong or what didn’t add up in the outgoing year.
Where lines did not fall in nice places (Psalm 16: 5), the new year offers another opportunity to set things on proper footing and hope – plan – for the best. Unless you know it and consciously work towards it, the year that rolls in may just be “another” year – and there may be nothing “new” in it or about it.
For those who have everything working well for them, will they still covet a new thing in the new year?
The answer, I think, is yes! Everyone wants add-ons, regardless of how well served they have been in the past or are at the moment.
Human needs, we have been told, are insatiable; so, everyone wants a turnaround that will make their best even better.
Oh, there must have been many with bad memories of the year that was winding down who would never want to be reminded of it!
For such, the desire is something different, refreshingly different, in the new year. They want to forget their sorrows.
They want to shut the door firmly against the past and look forward with hope towards the future.
In the new year, they must recover all! And they must march forward and forget all the sorrows of the past.
Isaiah 43: 18 – 20 is apt here, for it says: “Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old.
Behold, I will do a new thing; now it will spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.
The beast of the field shall honour me, the dragons and the owls: because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen”
These are comforting words for anyone trying to put the past behind him or her and looking at the new year not just as “another” year but as a “new” year in truth and in deed: A year that forecloses the pains, anguish and sorrow of the past; that makes a way where there had been no way and brings hope where there had been hopelessness.
The wilderness is one place where someone can easily lose his way; the wilderness of life is a place of hopelessness where, whether one moves forward or goes backward offers no reprieve.
Making a way there immediately brings hope – the hope of seeing light at the end of the tunnel, no matter how long.
I have been in the desert of northern Nigeria before and I know that the most prized commodity there is water – not gold or rubies. Water in the desert means life. The absence or lack of it means sure death – slow and painful death.
A new year that brings happiness as opposed to another year with its drudgery, however, comes with a price. Newness of life, newness of hope, and newness of aspiration must consciously be harnessed.
Scripture tells us how this should be done in Luke 5: 37 – 39 when it says: “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine will burst the wineskins and be spilled, and the wineskins will be ruined.
But new wine must be put into new wineskins, and both are preserved…” Old habits that profited nothing in the previous year must yield way for new habits that will make the new year not “another” year but a “new” year indeed. New ideas, new thought processes, new and better ways of doing things are imperative to making the new year “new” indeed.
Scripture says “death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Proverbs 18:21). If you can say it, believing it, you can do it! If you believe you can fly in this new year, then, believe you me, you will fly!
If you can dream it, you can achieve it. Most of the inventions we know today started as dreams. And some were even mistakes!
So, don’t be afraid to make mistakes if you really want 2025 to be a “new” year and not “another” year – drab, lacklustre and uneventful in all its ramifications.
The quotes from the bible here do not foreclose anyone. If you are a Christian, fine; but if not, no hassles.
Only “if thou canst believe…” (Mark 9: 23). God has constructed our mind as a powerhouse. What remains to be seen is the use to which the individual puts his or her own mind. This year, to make the year truly “new” and not “another” year, put your mind to positive use only.
Hold on to the word of God that says: “Behold, I make all things new”. And as if He knows that you need further assurance, He follows this up by saying: “Write: for these words are true and faithful”!
May 2025 be a happy new year and not just another year to all my esteemed readers in Jesus mighty name!
