Happy New Year!

It’s New Year’s Eve, and around the country and globe, millions of people are making New Year’s resolutions, and toasting to them. I am not one of those people. I have not made a New Year’s resolution in years! I know better…I am invariably one of the majority that breaks their resolutions, often before the old year has even had a chance to ride off into the sunset. After joining the crowd for many years and coming up with resolutions, I finally got smart and admitted that this great idea just did not work for me, and instead set me up for failure and disappointment. So I gave up. I resolved to make no more resolutions, the one resolution to which I have been able to stick! Ironic, isn’t it?

Let me be clear: there is absolutely nothing wrong with New Year’s resolutions. Just the act of making the resolution is a way to join into an activity with others, and then compare notes about how things are going, or not going. It can promote a sense of belonging and camaraderie. Setting goals, which is really what resolutions are, is a wonderful life skill. Preparing to work towards the goal, mapping out a course of action to achieve the goal, and following through to the end despite bumps in the road, are all valuable life skills. I have accomplished some goals, and yes, I do try to do all of those things, but for some reason, just not around New Year’s Eve.

New Year’s Eve for me is a time to reflect back on the goodness of God over the past year, and to cast off those things that are not from Him. We are made new by His grace, because of what Jesus Christ did for us, not by anything that we have done or can do. Our job is to believe, have faith in God, and accept what He has for us.

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.

How can I be “in Christ”? One way is to remain united with Him in faith, day after day, not based on how it feels today or tomorrow, but based in the knowledge that He has died, resurrected and ascended to sit at the right hand of the Father. When I am “in Christ” I am grafted into Him as a branch (me) is on a vine (Jesus), and the longer that I remain grafted into Him, the stronger that connection becomes, and the more like the vine this branch becomes. And eventually I bear the fruit that the vine is designed to bear! I don’t have to be the same old me that I was; I can choose to let that go, remain in Christ and accept those new things He has promised.

Isaiah 43:18-19 “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. ¹⁹ Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

I love these verses. They remind me of the gentleness and kindness of God when I mess up: He encourages me not to dwell in the past, not to look backwards at what went wrong, but to look forwards so I can see this “new thing” that He is doing. I love that it is kind of vague: God is encouraging us to keep our eyes on Him so we don’t miss what He is doing, the ways that He is making, or His provisions. As a human being, I can plan, prepare, map out and strive, but I can’t out-plan God! He sees things and knows things that I cannot. If I keep my eyes and ears open to Him, I will perceive this “new thing” that He is doing, and not miss it.

Ephesians 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Yup, that’s us! His workmanship: other translations use the word “masterpiece” and “handiwork”. The Greek word “poiema” is translated as “workmanship”, from which we get the English words “poem” and “poetry”. You are His poem! Remember the 1961 song by Johnny Tillotson (songwriters Mike Anthony and Paul Kaufman) “Poetry in Motion”? (Yes, I’m showing my age here!) That’s you, you are His poetry in motion. Notice the order here: you are God’s poetry in motion, created by Him in Christ, so you can do righteous works, which He has set aside for you, so you could go ahead and habitually do good deeds. Your creation in Christ precedes your works. Your good works have absolutely nothing to do with it! Thank goodness. Because if my ability to stick to resolutions is any indication, I’d be looking more like a disaster in motion than poetry in motion!

This New Year, my hope for you is that you will allow the grace, goodness and power of God to change you from the inside out, make you a new creation, forgetting what was in the past, and looking forward to what the Lord has in store for you as His workmanship. May God bless you. May you grow in His marvelous light, grace and love in 2022. Happy New Year!