New Year’s Realization
We spend a lot of time taking about New Year’s resolutions but as we all know 95% of these beautiful wishes go by the wayside before pitchers and catchers report to Clearwater (my personal measure of the beginning of spring). When I write those words I want to make it clear I am right there too, making and breaking resolutions I wish I could hold to. I know how the Apostle Paul feels when he writes “For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.” Romans 7:19. Sound familiar?
So this year I am going to try to cut myself loose from that flywheel of disappointment by switching things up a little bit. Instead of focusing so much on my abundantly obvious failings I am going to spend more time on examining the beauty of God and who I am in the Creator’s eyes.
First I know I am created in God’s image. I know I was designed to reflect the glory of God to the world. I am aware that I have fallen short of that in more ways that I could count or can remember. I know the penalty for that is separation from God here and in eternity because a holy God cannot be intimate with a sinful being (for some it will come as a surprise there is more to the word intimate than sexual, there is a much fuller meaning here for us to understand and explore but a fallen mindset robs us of this beauty all too often).
I get all of that and frankly it paints a very bleak picture, one I don’t want to think about all that much. However there is a wonderful blessing to those who are willing to face these realities full force. This is not the end of the story.
The God who created us is also a patient, persevering God who would stop at nothing to have the relationship with us, like a good father or mother whose heart breaks when their children are far from them.
God had a plan that while we were and are in our broken, fallen condition Jesus would come to make a way for us to come home to the Father. From this foundation we begin to see who we are and what our true value is in the eyes of the Creator. A God who would go to such lengths to rebuild a relationship does so for a reason, to lift us beyond our fallen state and return us to what he created us to be.
“For I know the plans I have for you” says the Lord, “they are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”
Jeremiah 29:11
My plans to do or not to do things to improve myself often fail, but God’s plan if I am willing to submit to it will not fail here or in eternity. The stark reality is there is a lot in this fallen world which has a plan for our disaster, it is all around us and hard to miss. God however, who is the ultimate authority, has a plan for good, a future and a hope, not a hope in what I can do, but in what God has already done, is doing and will do. I need only relinquish my plans to his control and authority to know the benefit.
“Friends, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead.”
Philippians 3:13
So 2011 through your eyes may have been a good year or a bad one, or more than likely, both. Let it go, watch the year in review stuff, spend some time alone remembering as you put away decorations and know you have as much ability to change the past as you would if you left your decorations up all year-long and tried to get the whole world to celebrate Christmas on the 25th of every month. Can’t do it.
God has a lot ahead of you that is worth reaching for. It is not to be found in your resolutions but in your resignations. Freely resigning from the illusion of control over your life and returning that to its rightful place in the hands of the Creator God. From there you will find a new year worth celebrating. Still doubtful? I understand completely, but admit you have placed your faith in a lot of crazier things, why not give God the same opportunity you gave the “ab lounger”, the “snuggie”, the “miracle Amish electric heater”, the “eat only (insert here) diet” and the “four-hour work week”. Now when you think about putting your trust in God does it feel so silly?
On New Year’s Eve we read Proverbs 3. I would point you to this scripture passage as a great place to start your New Year. May it be your best year ever.
Pastor Jim
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