This is the time of year when many come up with resolutions. So are our needs different, so are our resolutions different. I could tell you a statistic of how many resolutions get broken by the end of January, but we already know that many statistics are made up – so let’s just go with most resolutions are broken or not kept up with by the end of January.
As I looked over the last year and how my faith journey has taken me on some exciting paths and twists in my life, I look forward to this year with hope and anticipation. Have I come up with any ‘resolutions’? No. I was never one to do that, because of my practical nature, and knew within myself that I wouldn’t keep them anyway. One of the things I have done however, is to list a set of goals. I read somewhere that Oprah is using 2017 as a year of adventure, and I’ve determined to do the same. Each ‘adventure’ will be different for each individual – an item could be determining to explore your neighborhood that’s filled with restaurants. While I’ve added goals to my list, I’ve also added the ways I’ll go about accomplishing them.
While not specifically written on my list of goals/adventures – this is a big one for me. Not to let my past hurts and disappointments determine who I am or what my future holds. God has called me to be a new creature. I guess He asks that of us daily, but I think it’s especially important at the beginning of the year where we attempt to renew many things. We can’t do the same things we’ve always done and expect a different results – that’s the definition of insanity. In order to get new and different results, we must do new and different things.
Isaiah 43:18-19 NIV states, ‘forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.’ 25-26 continues: ‘I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more. Review the past for me, let us argue the matter together; state the case for your innocence.’
God himself wants you to come to Him. He’s waiting to do new things in your life and to restore what you once thought was barren. The devil tries to remind us of how unworthy we are, but God himself is telling us to come to Him – He is willing and able to blot out our sins and to remember them no more. But we need to have a real conversation with God.
Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you that you can make all things new. We thank you for loving us so much, that you want us to come to you for everything and you never see it as a bother, but instead you delight in us. Lord, help us to delight in you as well, so that we may want to do the work you have called us to do. Please give us a willing, compliant and obedient heart to do your will. We thank you for the opportunity of a new year. Help us to use it to bear good fruits for you.