January, 2008
Posted by Administrator (holytrin) on Mar 26 2008 at 2:45 PM
Newsletter >>

It’s about this time of year the phenomenon of “resolutions” begins.  With the turning of the year, replacing the wall calendar, learning once again how to write a different ending on the date on our checks, we come to a point in time, one of those universally-recognized bends in time.  As we start a new calendar, start new classes, and start learning to say “2008”  instead of the familiar “7”, it start us thinking.  Everything new, new year, it’s a new start.  And we start thinking, “Perhaps…”

New Year’s Resolutions are a recognition that not all is right in our lives.  The turning of the year provides us the opportunity to realize the truth: not all is as it should be.  And so in January we use this moment in time, this universally-recognized fresh start, as a beginning.  A chance to start over, to try again, to adapt and adopt better lifestyles, to be healthier and/or happier and/or thinner and/or better and/or…

There are two things that have always struck me about these types of Resolutions.  First, they are a form of repentance: recognizing that not all is right in our lives.  There are things that can, and should, be improved, and we can, and must, do better.  That is repentance, and so I’m always excited to see them happening in the world around us.

The second thing about them, though, makes me sad.  Not the (almost inevitable) breaking of the Resolutions, no – but the fact that people make them, or think to make them, at only one point in the year.  Only at New Year’s?  But our lives are broken in October, too, and we’re not so great in August, either. 

Perhaps that is a gift of the Church, of our teaching of confession (which has become quite the rage in society these days) and forgiveness (which is about as counter-cultural as anything I can think of – try saying, “I forgive you” to someone at work sometime and watch what happens).  God gives the chance for a new start every single day.  God gives us the chance to “do over” daily, weekly, moment by moment.  When we know God, we are given the gift of a “do over” when we need it, not when the calendar does.  And so our repentance, that act of recognizing our fault and vowing, trying, hoping to do better, comes every day.  God himself becomes the impetus – because we don’t want to disappoint someOne who is so generous and loving and wonderful to us.

So I’m all in favor of Resolutions.  But I like January 2^nd resolutions, too – because I need them on that day as well.  And the 3^rd.  And the 14^th.  And the 22^nd.  What a gift it is to be among God’s people, where new life – a new start – a new chance – a new hope is always waiting!

Peace,

-Pastor Tim