Each new year we take inventory and celebrate our victories, mourn our failures, grief our losses, and create in our minds all the new tasks we have in mind for the months to come.  We see the new year as a time for moving past the old year onto an exciting new time of opportunities.  Second Corinthians 5:17 re-enforces this idea by stating, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” Many people take this time of year to celebrate at some New Year’s Eve party, others come together with family on New Years Day to watch football and have a big meal, other use the New Year to reflect and meditate.  The ending of one year and the beginning of the new year is part of the cycle of life that we see in every aspect of our lives.  Genesis 8:22 describes the cycle that God created to allow everything to be born, to live, to die, and to be born again.  Genesis 8:22 states, “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer, and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”  In this statement, God promises to preserve and redeem his created order.  

We do not know the exact month that God was talking about in Exodus 12:1-2 when it is quoted,  “The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you.”   Even then people recognized the beginning and the importance of the new year.  Now, many hundreds of years later we still want to make resolutions and try to manipulate how the months to come will play out.  We have a false idea that we can just wish our future to be a certain way and it will come true.  In the Book of James, we are warned that we need to involve God in our plans before becoming too wrapped up in our earthy desires.  James 4:13-17 tells us, “Come now, you who say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.’ As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So, whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.”  In making our New Year Resolutions we need to involve God, consider our families, and be realistic and thankful.

So how should we proceed and create our resolutions?  It is suggested that we take inventory of our lives and reflect on our accomplishments and our shortcomings.  This exercise is not designed to gloat nor to punish ourselves.  It will help us build a foundation to build from.  Francis of Assisi, was an Italian Catholic friar, deacon, and mystic is credited with saying, “Start by doing what is necessary, then do what is possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.”  In other words, start simple, build toward new ideas, and your accomplishments may surprise you.  Along the same lines, Albert Einstein suggested that we “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is to not stop questioning.”  There are many suggestions in the Bible as to how and to what Resolutions should be about.  Solomon reminds us in Proverbs 19:21 that, “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.” In a letter to the people of Philippi Paul suggest that we look forward to the call of God when he writes in Philippians 3:12-15 stating, “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you.”  David has one of the best suggestions for a Resolution when he says in Psalm 51:10-11,  “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me.”  There are at least sixty-eight references to new resolutions in the Bible.  They all suggest in some form or fashion that the resolution needs to be based on becoming closer to God and having a foundation with God.  Idle wishes and wants will not be recognized and probably will not be fulfilled.  We need to remember that God has knowledge that we do not possess.  In Jeremiah 29:11 he reminds us,   “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope”   God knew you before you were even born and gave you everything you need to live a full and successful life. It is our daily choices that determine our path, our successes, our failures, and how we live our lives.

 “So, what sort of New Year’s resolution should a Christian make? Here are some suggestions: (1) pray to the Lord for wisdom (James 1:5) regarding what resolutions, if any, He would have you make; (2) pray for wisdom as to how to fulfill the goals God gives you; (3) rely on God’s strength to help you; (4) find an accountability partner who will help you and encourage you; (5) don’t become discouraged with occasional failures; instead, allow them to motivate you further; (6) don’t become proud or vain, but give God the glory. Psalm 37:5-6 says, commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.” (Staff, 2021)  Starting a new year off with a new attitude and with new ideas and plans is not new.  It has been considered good practice for a very long time.  “The ancient Babylonians are said to have been the first people to make New Year’s resolutions, some 4,000 years ago. They were also the first to hold recorded celebrations in honor of the new year—though for them the year began not in January but in mid-March when the crops were planted. During a massive 12-day religious festival known as Akitu, the Babylonians crowned a new king or reaffirmed their loyalty to the reigning king. They also made promises to the gods to pay their debts and return any objects they had borrowed. These promises could be considered the forerunners of our New Year’s resolutions. If the Babylonians kept to their word, their (pagan) gods would bestow favor on them for the coming year. If not, they would fall out of the gods’ favor—a place no one wanted to be.” (Pruitt, n.d.)  Pope John XXIII offers this prayer for 2022, “Consult not your fears, but your hopes and your dreams.  Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential.  Concern not yourself with what you tried and failed in, but what it is still possible to do.  Now is the time to put aside past and present setbacks and failures and look with confidence to the new day called tomorrow.”  ( Pruitt, S. n.d. )

 

 

History. Retrieved from The History of New Years Resolutions: https://www.history.com/news/the-history-of-new-years-resolutionsStaff. (2021, 4 26).

Got Questions. Retrieved from What Sort of New Years Resolution Should a Christian Make: https://www.gotquestions.org/new-years-resolution.html