The start of a new year is filled with the promise of new beginnings, an opportunity to be and do better. Many people make New Year’s resolutions in January, intending to do just that. Famously, many of those resolutions don’t make it into February.

It’s not just our New Year’s resolutions that lose their luster and fade. Experience shows that things can be new only once. Then weariness replaces enthusiasm, and discouragement replaces hope. We may earnestly wish to live better lives, but perhaps the demands of work and family interfere. Or we may seem to lack the resources or opportunities we need to improve. Or we may feel trapped in old patterns of thinking and acting. But does it have to be that way?

In the Bible we read this promise: “He that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new” (Revelation 21:5). God’s promise is, “I make all things new,” not “I will make all things new again.” If at some future time God were going to make all things new again, then at some point they must have stopped being new.