SILENCE:

Spend 2 minutes in silence, letting go of tension and distractions; being still and present before God.

SCRIPTURE READING:

Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. ~Revelations 21:5

DEVOTIONAL: 

I’ll confess: I’m a lover of new years. Something about this strange hovering space—where the world stills for just a moment—makes room for me to look back and forward at once. I find myself sitting with what has been: the joy, the ache, the labor that left me weary, and the small wonders that restored me. In this in-between, I am given permission to name what didn’t work, what I clung to when I should’ve let go.

This in-between disrupts empire’s rhythm, its rush to always keep moving without a pause to reflect on what’s formed us. Here, we find space to strip away what the world tells us we must become and begin asking what’s true, what’s sacred, what’s ours to carry into this new time.

I think of the Israelites on the edge of the Jordan, caught between the wilderness and the promise. In Deuteronomy, God tells them to remember: remember the way you were delivered, remember the bread that fell from the sky, remember who you are. But God also warns them to be wary of forgetting when they cross over. That in-between was a space for remembering and unlearning, for releasing what empire planted in them and holding fast to what’s holy.

As I step into the new year, I wonder what empires I have unknowingly built within myself—structures of perfectionism, self-reliance, or even despair. I ask, what might it look like to deconstruct them, to lean into the freedom of this threshold? Perhaps the new year is less about resolutions and more about remembering who you were before the world told you otherwise.

In the liminal, I feel God whisper, “I am making all things new.” Not with the crushing force of conquest, but with the tender hands of liberation. And perhaps, this year, that begins with me.

REFLECTION/APPLICATION:

Take a moment to remember who you were before the world told you otherwise. Have particular events of 2024 shaped you in ways that have caused you to become someone other than who God intended for you to be? Are there empires (ie.structures of perfectionism, self-reliance, or even despair) that you’ve unknowingly built within yourself that need to be deconstructed so that you can experience greater freedom in 2025?

PRAYER:

Liberating God, help me to remember who you created me to be before the world told me otherwise. Give me the courage to dismantle that which isn’t of you so that I might live more fully into my true authentic self. Amen.

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Source: Kat Armas, Cuban-American author, speaker, theologian; Abuelita Faith & Sacred Belonging