Maybe you see what I see, and hear what I hear, when you engage with students around campus.

Time and time again I encounter students who appear stuck and sound hopeless as it relates to their current situation and set of circumstances.

It may be the week they’ve been having.

It may be the season.

It may even be the semester…

While it will likely different from one student to the next, many of the struggles will be similar — and the narrative they share is often laden in language that speaks of desperation, as well as a total lack of belief that God can (or will) do anything about it.

And yet all around them — everyday, in fact — God is in the business of making things new. We need only point them towards the sunrise to prove our point.

No matter what the day before entailed, the sun went down, and that day came to its ordered end.

And today… well, today the sun rose — and a new day began.

As we start this new year, and this new academic term, I find myself wondering how many of our students need to hear this message. I wonder how many of them need to be reminded that the resolutions that lead to believing this year can be different, and the new professors and classes that lead to believing this can be a different kind of semester, and even each day’s sunrise that speaks to a new and a fresh start — point us to our Creator — and His desire to bring about something new inside of each of us — each and everyday.

I’m challenged to look with more intention at the start of this new year, term, and day for the students who are struggling to believe that their life can be different, their situation changed, their sense of stuck-ness made unstuck.

God is making things new all around us.

Our students need to be reminded of this regularly (as do we, I suppose). And if they need something visible, something tangible, something to serve as a consistent reminder… we need only point them towards the sunrise.