The funny thing about New Year’s resolutions is that they are pretty much the same, year after year. We all have particular struggles and the turning of the calendar seems like the perfect moment to commit to action to try to overcome them.
But most of us fail miserably and find ourselves back at precisely the point from which we started, regardless of our best efforts to change.
Truth is, we are terrible at remaking ourselves. Habits wear ruts in our thinking and in our behavior. It requires more strength than most of us possess to climb out and start fresh.
But God has promised that those who trust Jesus will be “made new”–they will be changed dramatically, like a caterpillar to a butterfly. From the inside out and no turning back.
“Therefore, if anyone is in the Messiah, he is a new creation. Old things have disappeared, and—look!—all things have become new!”
I Corinthians 5:17 ISV
In the five years before Dominic died, I had slowed my Bible reading to a crawl–limiting myself to one chapter a day and writing it out in my journal. After decades of church attendance, I realized that the stories had become too easy to rush through, the verses too familiar to resonate deeply in my spirit. I had just finished my journey through God’s Word in this way when my son was killed.
No one is prepared to bury their child, but God did lead me in the years before Dominic’s death to commit to reading Scripture in a slower, more deliberate way.
Having those Bible verses in my heart and in my head gave me a safe place to land when I received the awful blow.
So may I suggest that this New Year’s, choose the one resolution that can truly transform–if you don’t know Jesus, ask someone who does to introduce you to HIm.
If you are a Christ follower, commit to reading His Word. Store it in your soul. Write it on the tablet of your heart. You never know what a new year will bring…
And so, dear brothers, I plead with you to give your bodies to God. Let them be a living sacrifice, holy—the kind he can accept. When you think of what he has done for you, is this too much to ask? 2 Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but be a new and different person with a fresh newness in all you do and think. Then you will learn from your own experience how his ways will really satisfy you.
Romans 12:1-2 TLB
thelifeididntchoose 