Often God wakes me up in the middle of the night with a word, an idea, or a thought. So yesterday when He had me thinking about New Year's Resolutions and then woke me up early this morning with it again, I stumbled over my red and green Rubbermaid storage boxes (that are begging to be put back up in the attic) into the living room and opened up my computer to write a bit about it.
My sweet friend, Shannon Holmes, wrote this post two years ago about struggling to keep resolutions on January 1st each year. She gets me. That's why we're friends.
All over my social media are posts and blogs and stories about things people are going to change on January 1st. And it is inspiring! What a great opportunity to reset our minds about our health, our spiritual life, our habits, and the list goes on.
I love the idea of being intentional about a discipline that will impact my life or my world in a positive way. But there is something else that threatens to steal the excitement of change for the better...
Pressure.
Remember that God never required us in His Word to make a positive change on January 1st and keep it for 365 days without fail. Not that it wouldn't be a great accomplishment and something we should strive for! Each morning without fail we begin to see a dark sky change ever so slightly. Black is replaced by a dark blue haze and then a tiny glow can be seen across the eastern horizon. As the light spreads our world is illuminated by the light of the Son, and we are reminded of our second chance.
The view from my back deck this morning around 7am!
And that happens every 24 hours.
New Year's Resolutions are great when our lives are gliding along smoothly, but when bumps are found in the road (and they are sure to come), the commitments we made on January 1st can get lost in tragedy or just simply a tired and worn-out spirit.
And that's when I'm glad to have my second chance every morning instead of having to wait for another big New Year's milestone to come around. God cares too much about us to make us wait that long!
My mind is sometimes overcome with so much pressure about making a big change on January 1st and not stumbling for a whole year that I decide not to even try. The good news is that if we fail we don't have to wait until January 1st to fix it. God has given us a reminder of His steadfast Love each morning when His grace and mercies are new and available to us again.
The steadfast Love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; They are new EVERY MORNING; Great is your faithfulness.
Lamentations 3:22-23