Newness. Most people love new items. A child unwraps a package to find a new toy. Fun! A young man purchases a new car. Excitement! A young mother delivers a new baby. Joy!
New shoes. New jobs. New friends. The arrival of fresh acquisitions, discoveries, experiences or just something different often makes us overwhelmingly happy. Some people love the idea of newness to such a degree that they will try to replicate the experience. That’s why an air freshener called “new car smell” exists. It’s as if smelling that odor again will recreate that feeling of driving a spanking brand new vehicle off the car lot.
This morning, on Page 4 of my Chapter One (January 4th) in my book of Opportunity (2011), excitement permeated the air at my office. Our non-profit has been planning a new initiative for a very long time. Dreaming, discussing, praying, preparing, arranging and fundraising have been in the works for years and now the dream is finally becoming reality. Now that’s exhilarating!
A vital component for this new initiative arrived this morning. Our staff and a couple of volunteers were on hand to greet the arrival. We couldn’t wait until it got there. We watched the door. We didn’t want to miss a thing!
We even took pictures and I’m quite certain the delivery men thought we were nuts. So we took pictures of them too! Someone watching us would no doubt have been very amused to see grown women get so animated over a delivery. But that’s how new things affect us.
I admit I’m a little quirky and some of the things that float my boat would make another person yawn. One odd category of items that excites me is new office products. Yes, you just read that correctly…office products.
As long as I can remember, I have loved all of those gizmos and gadgets that make an office run smoothly. No doubt, this unique affection came from my days as a little girl playing “office” with my dad’s leftover assortment of office forms and items from his job.
At one of my former jobs, nothing made my day like a trip to the office supply closet. I would stand there surveying those shelves of goodies like a hungry kid in a candy shop. I was especially enamored with a product called “tacky finger,” which we used to make our way through pages and pages of documents, and these cute, little colored clips we used to mark pages that needed corrected.
Shopping excursions to stores like Staples and Office Max send me into outer orbit. I literally drool as I wander up and down the aisles of such treasures. I’m particularly a sucker for anything new boldly displayed in front of me. When my husband worked as a sales rep for an office supply company, I would almost jump up and down with glee every time he came home from a trade show with bags of “goodies.”
New pens of many colors, ohhh so nice. Notebooks of various sizes and shapes, oooo. Highlighters, staplers, paper clip dispensers, rulers, sticky notes, cute colored paper clips, labels, folders….you name it, I love it! I still have a secret stash of pens that no one but me is allowed to use.
So today our office manager handed me a treat. To her, it was an ordinary catalog which arrived in our mailbox, and one that she almost chucked into the trash can! But at the last minute, she asked me, “Do you by any chance want this catalog?”
All it took was one look at the thick office products offering in her hands and I was deliriously happy. As I turned the pages, I oohed and aahed (but not out loud!) at the items in that book. Perusing all of those new office supplies gave me such joy.
And that’s when it occurred to me. God gives us a new catalog every morning, but He asks us to take the opportunity to fill it with things worthy of making Him smile, things to give glory and praise to Him. It reminds me of a verse and chorus of an old but meaningful song, “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.”
“Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided;
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!”
New mercy poured out on me and you morning after morning. Now that’s something to really get excited about, don’t you think?
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