2024 has been a big year for many people in many different ways. For me, it has seen new challenges, the completion of a huge project, the graduation of my eldest and lots of changes in our family, church and life. It has been a year where I have used up a lot of energy to achieve significant results in all areas of my life.
As we come to the end of any year, all of us can feel like we are drained, tired and just needing a break, then we hit Christmas and the New Year’s celebrations with the family gatherings, Christmas events and the busyness of the season. If we aren’t careful, we cannot take the time to recover from the year we have had, in order to prepare for the year that God has put before us to step into.
As I started to come to the end of the year, I was pondering on what had happened and how I felt after the year that was. During this time, I felt the Lord drop four words into my heart about how we can step into a new year in a way that allows us to be in a position to see God move in our lives and the lives of those around us.
These words are: refresh, restore, renew and revive.
As a way to frame these words, it is important to understand something about the common letter in them all. The prefix “re” before a word is significant in that it denotes that notion of doing something again. These four words aren’t something that can be done once only. They are repeatable, you can apply what they reference over and over again, as much as and as often as required. Additionally, all these words imply an action to be undertaken or to be received in order for the result of the word to take affect in a person’s life.
Have you ever felt dirty and stale through working hard and just needing a shower to feel clean? What you need is to be refreshed. Refresh in it’s simplest form means to “make fresh again.” Just like a fresh coat of paint and a fresh set of sheets, a fresh outlook, a fresh loaf of bread.
Refreshment gives you new life and makes you feel like you can take on the challenges in front of you again with renewed vigour. To be refreshed is to gain a spark of energy.
The Bible talks about times of refreshing coming from the Lord (Acts 3:19). The Greek word here, anapsuxis, refers to giving relief, rest and allowing us to breath again. In other words, when the Lord refreshes us in His presence, we can rest in order to breathe again.
What has become stale in your life throughout the year. Not because of lack of intent but maybe of overuse? What needs to be freshened up? What just needs to be made fresh ready for the new year?
When we get to the end of the year, we can feel like we have been beaten up and battered around. We can also feel empty from giving of ourselves, our time, talents and treasure. We have nothing more in us to give. It is in these times that we need to be restored. We need to be given a new burst of life in order to move into a new year of blessing and service.
To restore can be looked at through two ways:
Psalm 23:3 “He restores my soul” and Psalm 51:12 “Restore to me the joy of my salvation” both capture both concepts. The Hebrew word for restore in these verses “shub” refers to returning back to something. In other words, when we are restored we return back to an original state, to a full state. Restoration also comes from returning what has been used, lost or stolen. We are restored through turning once again to the presence of God and the power of the Holy Spirit.
What have you poured out this year that you need the levels of your tank to be restored? What have you lost that you want restored/returned to you? What has been stolen that you need found, returned and restored in your life?
Every year, we get a chance to start the calendar again. We have subscriptions that we start again. We get new seasons, new dates and new times. It is a new year. But we don’t always start with new thinking or new attitudes. Sometimes, we have an old feeling about us. We have old ways and we just feel used and old.
When things become old or used up, then they can either be thrown away or renewed. For us as Christians, there are times to throw away the old – the old thinking or the old way of doing things. But sometimes, what we need to do is just to renew what we have allowed to get old in our lives. Generally we refer to renewing the mind, but in Psalm 51:10 when David speaks of renewing “a steadfast spirit within me” the Hebrew word there, “chadash”, refers to rebuild something that got old and broken down. In other words, one way to look at renewing is to rebuild that which is broken and needs to repair.
What in our life has broken through overuse? Or is old because it is worn out due to us utilising it to help others? What do we need to renew in our lives by building the way it is done again, building our strength, building a new process?
In modern church settings, we hear a lot about the end time revival and people praying for this revival. I find it interesting that we speak of revival without looking at the meaning of the word. Revival comes from the root word “revive” and to revive something is to bring back to life something that once was alive and is now dead. Revival is not for those who don’t know Jesus as they were never alive in Christ, but for those of us who have had part, or all of our lives become dead to God and what He wants to do in our lives.
Psalm 119 has numerous verses which mention the word revive and nearly all of them in the context of according to God’s Word. His Word has the power to make us alive again if we allow it. The Hebrew word for revive is “chayah” and means live, continue in life, sustain life, to be alive. In other words, if we have any area of our life which is dead, we can apply God’s word, allowing it to breathe into it and bring new life.
What dreams have we allowed to die which need new life in them? What relationships, talents, ministries, ideas, desires, words? What has had the life drained out of it that needs new breath from God’s Word to revive it?
The new year is a chance to allow God to refresh, restore, renew and revive us. It takes us to spend time in His presence and His Word and to allow Him to move in us. Let the upcoming year be a year in which you start being fresh again, full again, new again and living again.