“I
never make New Year’s Resolutions, anymore,” the man told me, “I
never keep them, anyway.” I can remember all too many
resolutions I’ve made and let slip away, too. But I believe New
Year’s resolutions are worth making. Let me tell you why.
First, we all need changes.
Some we find very hard to admit to ourselves. I’ve heard people who
say, “I have no regrets about my life. If I had it to do over,
I’d do it the same way again.” But that attitude is way too
blind and self-serving so far as I’m concerned. There is great power
in confession, to ourselves, to God, to others. Owning up to our
failures is the first, painful step on the road to something better.
Second, when we change
calendars is a good time for reassessment.
-
How did last year go?
-
What do I want to do
differently this year?
This time of year always
reminds me of a passage of scripture, better understood by farmers
than suburbanites:
“Break up your unplowed ground, and do not
sow among thorns” (Jer 4:3)
It makes sense. The more land you
put into production, the more prosperous you’ll be. But some of us
are stupid enough to try to sow seeds in land overrun by star thistle
without breaking up the soil and taking care to root out the thorns
as they come up. Call it laziness. Call it stupidity.
Let me ask you a serious
question.
- What percentage of your life is producing something of
value to God?
- How much “unplowed ground” do you have that
ought to be broken up in this coming year and made useful?
Reassessment. The brink of a new year is a good time for
reassessment.
Third, New Year’s is an
excellent time for mid-course corrections. Sure, we might fail in
what we set out to do, but if we fail to plan, the old saw goes, then
we plan to fail. If you’re so fearful of failure that you never set
up your row of tin cans to shoot at, you’re not very likely to hit
any at all. Failure is not the end. For the person who determines to
learn from it, failure is a friend.
One of my heroes in the Bible
is the Apostle Paul. Talk about failure! Throughout his life he was
opposed, persecuted, shipwrecked, stoned and left for dead, deserted
by trusted co-workers, slandered, and scorned. Sometimes it seemed
that projects to which he had devoted years were turning to dust
before his eyes. But during from one of his stints in prison, we can
see from one of his letters an unwillingness to quit. “Forgetting
what is behind,” he wrote, “and straining toward what is
ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has
called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Phil 4:13-14, NIV) No
wonder he made a mark on his world. He stopped looking back, and
looked forward instead. He didn’t let the fear of failure keep him
from trying again.
Fourth, New Year’s is a time
to learn to rely more heavily on the grace of God. Now I’ve met a few
self-made men and women and so have you, but so often these people
seem proud and driven. There is another way: beginning to trust in
God’s help. One more secret from the Apostle Paul: “I can do
everything through Him who gives me strength,” he said (Phil
4:13, NIV). And God’s strength saw him through a lot, through pain,
through joy, and through accomplishment.
If this last year, you didn’t
practice relying on the Lord as much as you should have, there is no
time like the present to make a New Year’s resolution. In fact, why
don’t you say a short prayer right now, use these words if you like:
“Dear God, I want the new year to be different for me.”
Now
spell out in prayer some of the changes you’d like to see. And close
this way:
“Lord Jesus, I know that I’m going to need a lot of
help for this. So right now I place myself in your hands. Help me to
receive Your strength.
Amen.”
Good. Now you’ve got a much better
chance of a Happy New Year.
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