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MAKING ALL THINGS NEW
“What’s Your New Year’s Resolution?” That’s the question so many of us ask this time of year. What are you going to fix in your life? What are you going to change? Will it be: losing the 50 holiday pounds you put on? Going to the gym every single day? Saving up a bunch of money? Taking up a new hobby? Being nicer to your brat of a sister? Giving up on New Year’s resolutions altogether because they’re terrible?
We want our year to start off the right way. We want to do better this year than last. But all of these New Year’s resolutions, while good intentioned, feel like a lot of pressure. And many of them fail by February, leaving us feeling worse about ourselves than when we started. So why do we do them?
I think the answer is that there is just something really good about imagining a brand-new start, where life looks different for us, in a good way. And that’s why, rather than New Year’s resolutions, and the burden they become, we might be better served imagining the blessings God gives us at the start of a New Year, the possibilities that are just around the corner, the new things God might do for us and through us in the coming year.
I like to think, this time of year, about what new things God will do right here in our church. Think about the new babies who will be born and baptized into the family of God this next year. Or think about the new people that might come through our doors looking for an opportunity to experience God’s love. Think about the new ideas that will come forward to help our church become a more welcoming and loving place. Think about the new opportunities we’ll have to serve our neighbors in need. Think about the people who are wondering how they’re going to make it, praying for help, and who will find it through people like you and me. In your own life, since the church is much more than a building or what we do inside that building, what new things might God do through you, or in your family, or in your life?
There’s a passage from the book of Isaiah that goes like this: “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do 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. The wild animals will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches; for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise.”
This January, as we begin a new year in this church, I invite you to not simply look at the past, but to look forward toward a future together with your Christian brothers and sisters and with God. Consider the new life that God might bring to you. Consider what new things that God might already be starting right here and now, in our church and in our community. What new things might God do for you or through you this year? Look and see…for God is making all things new!
Pastor Dane
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