New Year, Now What?

A belated Happy New Year to all who stop by.
Thanks for taking the time to read the insane rambling of a fool. I appreciate it.

Question: do you do make New Year's resolutions?

I don't really get why the beginning of the year is such a great time to start new habits. Perhaps, it's the appeal of having a clean slate: if it's a new year, then maybe we can forget about our failings of last year. For example, if I'm feeling like I should give up coffee [I'm not, just an example] because I feel guilty of its ill-effects on my health, then when 09 starts, I can take solace in the fact that I haven't had coffee this year... until I do.

The problem I think with New Year resolutions is that, we set ourselves up for a fall, simply because of the fact that we do usually fall. It's in our nature.

 If the New Year is our fresh beginning and we fail a few days or weeks in, then what? It seems that the clean slate is dirty and I guess we have to wait a year to get it again.
Cancel the gym membership, bring the ashtrays back out, get the triple expresso. Reinvention aborted.

What, however, if our clean slate isn't fixed on the calendar?
What if the clean slate isn't based on how we feel and our level of euthusiasm?
What if it's based on something beyond ourselves?

Let me tell you a story:

Like most guys (if not all), I struggle with a certain sin [scroll down to the bottom of the page to have spelled out for you]. A few years ago, my clean slate was a youth camp, Teenstreet. My thinking was that after the camp, everything would be different. Temptation would disappear and if not, I'd just hug Jesus, pull out a metaphorical sword and slay that demon in a glorious moment of triumph and fanfare [think the music from Chariots of Fire].

Well, it didn't go like that: I was weak and got my butt handed to me. I remember getting on my knees in anguish. Why, oh God, didn't I stand in the battle? Was I lying to myself about wanting to change? I begged God for answers for these questions and I begged for forgiveness.

He responded.

In that moment, I was given a epiphany. The clean slate that we pretend to have at the beginning of the New Year does actually exist but not in that way. It exists in a person of Jesus and in the event of the cross.

When Jesus died on the cross, he became the sinner that I am, he took on the sins that I commit and they died with him. The punishment and justice that I deserve was taken on him.

I'd always known these facts but usually, it made me sad and even more depressed. [ah, not only am I a screw-up but because of me, Jesus had to die] However, on this occasion, I realised that this sacrifice of Jesus was a act of love and just as He died, He rose again.

My failure in trying to change the way I live, helped me realise to a fuller degree the love of God and the hope he gives me.

The apostle Paul clearly understands what I'm talking about:

But he said to me,  "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

2 Corinthians 12:9

So, when I fail, I know that I can rise again and do better. As long as I'm on this planet in my sinful state, I'm going to mess up, but God knows that. He doesn't see a failure, though. He sees his son.

It's not the New Year that should give me the desire to live better and grow, it's the hope that I have in Christ that God is using even my failures to make me into the man He wants me to be.

Thank you, Papa, for your grace and patience with your child.