it's a new thing.

I missed a couple weeks of Thursday emails. Life got really full, and saying yes to other things that took priority meant saying no to writing these. But it doesn’t really matter why I stopped — whether it’s justified or not — it still feels hard to start again.

Every time I break a routine, resistance comes with starting again. Whether it’s true or not, it just feels like it’ll be really hard to back on track. And honestly, I want to avoid it — which only makes it worse.

I’m thinking about this a lot as I sit here and actively choose to not avoid writing something today, and I’m thinking about how it’s not just getting back on track but sometimes staying on track feels hard too.

I think it’s the “on track” part. It’s the standard we create. The “how it’s always been” or the “how it used to be.” We hold it up as the gold standard — when actually, perhaps we’ve outgrown it.

What I hear God saying this week is, “Don’t keep trying to put yourself into that box. You no longer fit into it.”

In other words, you can’t put new wine in old wineskins.

And yet, whenever I try to pick it back up or stick with it — whatever “it” is — I tend to look to what it was, why it was so great for me at one point in time, and how I can get back there.

But I’m new. This day is new. This time is new. It doesn’t matter if I’ve been doing this every day for five years or I’m trying to get back into it after taking a break. I no longer belong in the old thing, in the way it used to be.

That doesn’t necessarily mean it needs to be entirely new and different. But instead of remembering what it was, what about looking forward to what it could be?

What if today marked a new thing, and rather than what you’ve known it to be in the past, it pointed you to and positioned you for who you’re becoming?

The power of God is in you, even on a Thursday.