Tonight will probably be a noisy one. Fireworks, horns, revelry, and if you are in Texas as I am, maybe a few pistols fired into the air. Happy New Year!
People will write resolutions to be better, act better, and do better. Most will try hard the first week, slip by week three, and give it up entirely by Valentine’s Day. Or so the statistics say. Seems a bit pointless, then? I mean, why set ourselves up for the fall?
It is simply because of the Fall (Genesis 3) that our lofty goals often go unaccomplished. We are, after all, only human. And humans sin, get angry, frustrated, and depressed. We have a tendency to be motivated by our feelings. But feelings are fickle and fluctuating.
If we really want to change, we need a power beyond ourselves. We need God. Paul states we are a new creation when we receive Christ as our Savior and the Holy Spirit comes to live in us. God’s mercies are new every morning, according to the writer of Lamentations 3:22-23. If that is true, then we are allowed do-overs. We can confess, and then start over.
But, here is the key. We cannot do it alone. We must rely on God’s Spirit within us to help us. Help us love more, give more, and think of others more.
So, happy new year, but more appropriately, happy new day. Every day.
Lord, help me resolve to serve you better and bend my will to yours. Renew my spirit, my heart, and my thoughts today. Thank you that your mercies are new every day and that you are working in me to become who you created me to be. Amen.
Go Deeper — If you write resolutions, why not spend some time asking God how he wants to renew you instead of how you want his help renewing yourself. Then thank him for this new day.
Photo Credit: Mel Poole