Did you wish someone a happy New Year at the close of 2022 and if so, what exactly did you m
ean by it? Usually, we are expressing the hope that the year to come will be at least as good, if not better than the year that has gone. But will it be? No one knows. Too many things are outside of our control!
In wishing for a happy New Year we are longing for a better, healthier, happier and more fulfilling life. This is unfortunately easier to say than to achieve, which is why many of us have the habit of making new year’s resolutions. We may, for example want to be healthier so we resolve to eat better; sleep well and exercise more, but too often, as Mark Twain observed, “New Year’s Day is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.” Why? Because though we mean well when we make our resolutions, the reality is that it takes so much effort, discipline and commitment to create the everyday habits that bring about the desired changes we seek, and its just too hard!
As a Christian, when I wish someone a happy New Year, I am in reality offering a prayer to Almighty God, that He will help each one of us to become the person, He created us to be. That He would give us the desires of our heart and keep us in His perfect peace. This begins for each of us as we make a heart-felt resolution to open our hearts to Jesus Christ, His Son, whom God sent to die in our place, becoming “sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”(2 Corinthians 5:20-21).
Today, resolve to have a happy new year, by opening your heart to Jesus Christ, so that you can experience this deep, lasting and transformative change which depends not on you keeping your promises, but on God, keeping His!
This article was written by pastor John Winter and appeared in the Whitby Gazette: Views from the Pews.