Ah yes, it’s that time of year again where we take stock of our lives.
The question is, why do we only do this once a year? It’s probably because that’s what everyone else is doing. The reality is that every day of our life we have the opportunity to begin again. God has a new year in store for us daily.
I like to think of each day as a universe to itself. In the morning I wake up (am born). Through the day I live my life. At night I go to sleep (die).
By viewing each day as an isolated universe one can get quite a perspective on things. There’s no time to spend worrying. There’s only time to be spent doing what needs to be done.
By getting things done on a daily basis we accomplish quite a bit. Most people that worry don’t actually DO anything to resolve their problem. They sit around in fear focusing on the problem instead of walking in faith taking the necessary steps (doing) to resolve the problem.
Am I against New Year’s resolutions? Absolutely not. I’m against the idea of limiting our resolutions to one day a year. I’m also against the lack of commitment to those changes within the first month.
People that bring about real change in their lives fail miserably. They try, they fail, they try again, they fail again. The key is that they keep trying in spite of failing. Eventually they fail less and succeed in changing for longer periods of time. One day they realize they’ve succeeded in bringing about change in their life.
Christians are just people with a little extra help. We get saved, we sin, we repent, we sin again. Eventually, as we keep repenting and resisting the sin in our lives we accomplish change. One day we awake to realize we’ve overcome that sin in our life. Then God allows us to move on to the next item in our maturing process.
So what’s all this got to do with New Year’s resolutions? Everything!
Take stock of your life. Plan your New Year’s resolution. Start working on that change. DON’T GIVE UP. When you fail (because we all fail) just realize this is part of the process of change. Nothing that humans are involved in is perfect.
Change requires failure. We learn more from failing than succeeding. Expect it. Embrace it. Use it.
(Galatians 6:9 KJV) And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.
