Devotion: New Year, New You?

It’s a new year?  Is it a new you?

People complain about those who make New Year’s resolutions, thinking they are just meaningless goals that we will all drop.  But I find the discipline in goal setting (not just on January 1, but throughout life) to be an important spiritual discipline.  It claims that God has the power to recreate and reshape me.  That life has meaning and direction, should I be willing to follow God’s leading.

I started the year off by reading the book of Ecclessiastes (not the biggest pick me up book).  It is a story about King Solomon, one of the wealthiest kings with a large harem of wives, and how he has found life is utterly meaningless.  He is given the credit for making the line “There is nothing new under the sun.”  It is interesting that many hold onto that belief, when the rest of Solomon’s rant is about how meaningless life is.  I’m not quite willing to subscribe to the rest of his thinking.  He is right that the pursuit of money, power, prestige (and harems) will leave us feeling inadequate and meaningless.  That is not a new way to resolve, but if we resolve to reshape our life in pursuit of Christ that is life changing.

The story of Christ shows us that there is something new under the Son.  Paul says in Corinthians that “If anyone is in Christ, their old life has gone, and a new life has begun.”  Christ’s promise is that if we strive to follow God, new life will emerge.

 

What did you resolve to do this year?  Is it to your benefit or God’s?  It’s never too late…what might God desire for you in 2012?