I’m not waiting for the new year. This morning I jump into my 2024 reading plan, reading from Genesis, Matthew, Acts, and Psalms. And the common theme I’m considering as I chew on this morning’s readings? As the year comes to end, I’m thinking about beginnings.

In Matthew, there’s the beginning of Jesus as I read again through His family line. Acts is getting me ready for the beginning of the church as it sets the stage for a power to come from heaven which will enable and compel the followers of Jesus to go into all the earth. And Psalms talks of a tree’s beginnings, one that yields its fruit in season because it has been planted by streams of water. Sown with the seed of “the law of the LORD” and watered as the word is meditated upon “day and night.”

But it’s the beginning I read about in Genesis for which I am particularly thankful this morning. For without that beginning there’s no reason to believe in any of the other beginnings I’ve read about this morning.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

(Genesis 1:1 ESV)

In the beginning, God . . .

What a difference those four words make. What a foundation they lay. For if in the beginning anything else but God, then it’s really hard to make sense of what’s happening now. To make sense of what’s happening in a world where wars, famine, and new calamities each day make you wonder if things will ever get better. To make sense of what’s happening in our culture, where truth is increasingly whatever suits the individual best and yet must be the standard by which everyone else must be judged. To make sense of what’s happening in our own lives, so often far removed from the script we might have imagined for ourselves. If, in the beginning, there wasn’t God, then what’s left to make sense of anything today?

But if, in the beginning, God, then blessed indeed is the man, and the woman, who delights in Him. Blessed because they are tethered to a transcendent reality and to an objective truth — a truth which remains as the plumb line by which we can measure all other truths.

If, in the beginning, God, then we are His idea, and He is not ours. We are His creation, formed for His purposes, and God is not a result of our imagination, made up for our own sense of well-being.

If, in the beginning, God, then we can rest assured that the work begun by Almighty God — King of kings and Lord of lords — is a work that will be completed. A work accomplished perfectly according to His purposes, precisely according to His plan, and permanently according to His promise. For if, in the beginning, God, then truly, “It is finished.”

In the beginning, God. An anchor for the soul as we look back and process the year behind even as we wonder about the year ahead. The reality which brings about a sure hope, independent of what may transpire on any given day, as it is built upon the unfailing intentions of Him who created the day.

In the beginning, God. Thus, whatever has transpired in ’23 — whether good or not so good — He has known it all, blessed through all, and has sustained through all. And whatever lies ahead in ’24 — whether good or not so good — He remains sovereign over all.

So, I am comforted, and encouraged as I’m reminded that in the beginning, God.

Rejoicing in His eternal grace. Rejoice for His eternal glory.