New and Everlasting All at Once?

This is a new and an everlasting covenant, even that which was from the beginning. (D&C 22:1)

How can something be “new” and “everlasting” at the same time?

Isn’t that a paradoxical, even irrational combination of words?

I mean, if something is “everlasting,” eventually it won’t be new any longer. If I have an everlasting pair of shoes, they will eventually not be new to me. Right?

But the covenant we make with the Lord, the relationship between us that is based on that covenant, is both new and everlasting at the same time because it is everlastingly renewed.

I can see the truth of this mirrored in my mortal relationships.

My love for my spouse or child or friend is everlasting because it is renewed every time I see them or think of them.  It is new again, every new day.  It is like falling in love anew every new day.  This is such a familiar and universal longing in all our hearts—to love and be loved in just this way.

With fellow mortals, this love is fallible. We disappoint each other. We let each other down. We betray each other. It is not always everlasting.

But with the Lord, not only can our relationship be new—and renewed—every day, every hour. We also can trust that it is everlasting. It will never fail us. The Lord will never fail us.

 “I am that I am” (Exodus 3:14). 

Jehovah said this about Himself. I am that I am. Present tense.

Not past tense—I was—, nor future tense—I will be. No. He said, I am always in the present because the present is always before my face—always new and renewed, in the everlasting present.

And so in our relationship with Jesus Christ—our new and everlasting relationship with Him—we must keep coming back. We get up each time we slip. We keep repenting. We keep believing.

Each new day we turn to Him, we think of Him, we speak to Him. Each new day we fall in love with Him again. In this way, our covenant relationship with Him becomes both new and everlasting.