It will soon be that time of year again! Before you know it Thanksgiving and Christmas will be upon us and then the New Year.
It’s time, too, to reflect on the past year and to wonder about the future. The media will be focusing on the New Year. You’ll notice that just about everybody will be giving his two-cents-worth about making resolutions.
Economists will evaluate last year’s business and prognosticate the next year’s possibilities. Politicians will rehearse last year’s scandals and predict the future of the current political giants.
If you haven’t already, it is a good time now, well in advance of New Year’s, to evaluate yourself and your ambitions, your goals, your shortcomings, your responsibilities.
Really, we should be doing this all the time, not just once a year.
Everybody gets prepared for a new year. People tighten their belts, face life with gritted teeth, and resolve to “do better.” Needless to say, the resolves often don’t last.
Everybody will be busy turning over new leaves. But what they don’t seem to realize is they’re just working on the other side of the same old leaf!
I remember with amusement the way I used to play the “new leaf ” game every year. I once resolved when I was in school, to study at least two hours every night. That lasted about two weeks-until exams.
More than once I resolved to read my Bible through or memorize such-and-such a Scripture portion. Same flop! Of course, I was the last to admit my flop.
I Am Resolved I tried rationalizing. Like . . . I don’t need to study hard this week; there are no tests coming up . . .or . . .I’ll wait till school’s out so I’ll have more time for memorization.
Finally I got wise to thew hole thing and admitted my resolves were flops. Then I really hit on a solution. Just stop making those stupid resolutions-no use to begin something I know I can’t finish.
Glorious freedom! No more resolutions to worry about! But it wasn’t all that simple. Something was “eating” me. I knew I needed to do better in a lot of ways, resolutions or no resolutions.
“New leafing it” wasn’t the solution to my dilemma either. There had to be a more basic change-a change more significant than a mental assertion that I needed to “do better.”
I found my solution, not in life-reformation, but in life transformation.
Jesus once told about a young man who also experienced this same life-transformation. It happened this way….
The fellow was always independent. He demanded his share of the family wealth so he could go “live it up,” doing the things he never got to do at home.
Needless to say, he had a riot-till his money ran out. Then the tide turned on him. He had to stoop to get a job-imagine the humiliation! But worse . . . his job was hog-feeding. He needed the money, but this was the limit! He even got so hungry on the job, he longed to eat what the pigs left-imagine!
The Bible says, “He came to himself.” It was about time! He didn’t resolve to get a better job either, or to be a “good boy”in the future. He resolved to completely change his way of acting. Quit living a “riot,” go back to his father, repent, and live differently.
That was not leaf-turning. That was like throwing away the old leaf and the old book, too, and beginning a new book. Needless to say, his father accepted him back,forgave him, and loved him.
Each of us is like this wayward son. If we aren’t living right, if we don’t measure up to God’s standards, we have to do more than turn over a “new leaf.” We must repent of our wrongdoing and completely realign our thinking and actions to fit God’s way.
Any resolves we make must be God’s will and we must rely on God’s power for success. Nobody, not even Christians, can carry out plans alone, without help. The Christian must admit that God is right when He says, “Without me ye can do nothing.”
The Christian must rely solely on the power of the Holy Spirit of God. Trusting his own powers of reformation, the Christian will ink like Peter when he took his eyes off Jesus “just for a moment.”
If you’re not a Christian as this year draws to a close and a new year begins, begin a new book for God. If you are a Christian, begin a new chapter with renewed desire and effort to please Him who is your Life.
“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart;and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shal ldirect thy paths” (Proverbs 3:5, 6).
-by RLB