New Year, Fresh Start

For many people, the New Year is an opportunity to start over. It is a time to re-arrange our priorities and make personal improvements that are usually focused on health, self-improvement, finances, and relationships. Although the intention is noble, the reality is that a lot of us fail before we start or a few months after the year starts. 

People find themselves with a long list of possibilities to start the new year stronger and healthier every year. We often find ourselves surrounded by hundreds of resources that promise to keep us on track and make our goals achievable. Still, many times the odds are not in our favor.

Year after year, people all over the world set out to become faithful followers of God, but this year as humanity was stroked with a health crisis, it seems as though and this year more than ever, every Christian’s resolution is above all, to grow closer and more faithful to God and become committed to his love. 

We have all been directly or indirectly affected by this crisis. Some have lost jobs, possessions, family members, or relationships, but despite everything humanity has been through this year, we continue to strive to follow and trust God. Finding encouragement in the Scripture will change how we perceive slow change. Slow change is often seen as a failure because things don’t happen the way we want them to or as fast as we want them to happen. We need to slow down and look at things from a different perspective and trust that God will provide that change according to his will. Things don’t happen overnight, nor do they happen when we want them to. 

Listen to God’s words, for he will illuminate our path, and be patient. When you set your resolutions, make sure you set manageable goals this New Year, which’s the key to success. The harder you try to be perfect and set unreasonable goals, the harder it is to accomplish them.

Keep in mind that whether we succeed or fail, God’s plans for us continue, they’re a lifelong process, and he will never abandon us. 

This year, place your resolutions in God, for he will look beyond our sins and will heal our hearts.

To put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. - Ephesians 4:22