Choose Now!
January 4, 2022
We focus so much on New Year’s celebrations. Many, including myself, stay up late watching movies, waiting for the ball to drop in Times Square. It seems like it is such a big deal that we are rolling into a new year. Along with that new year comes resolutions. Welcome to “2022 – what are you gonna do?” (Thanks to Andrew Newberry, our Children’s Ministry Director for that slogan!) Have you come up with any New Year’s resolutions? I honestly do not remember ever coming up with resolutions. I am sure if I did, I would inevitably break them early on in the year.
According to a quick search on the internet, January 12 is the day to beat since many have given up on their resolutions by that day. I would hope that if I did make New Year’s resolutions that I would at least make it past 12 days. Yet, what does it matter if I make it 12 days or 12 weeks if I do not follow through to my end goal of accomplishing my resolution?
New Year’s Day seems so different from other days in the year. And yet, it is just another day, just like every day before it that was and is completely different from the day before it. Every day is a new beginning.
The verse above offers some of the only hope found within the book of Lamentations. Hope in the Lord, because His “love never ceases.” It goes forward and offers the hope that God’s mercies never come to an end . . . they are new to us every morning. Change for us is constantly taking place. With the change in time, we have the opportunity to recognize a new moment to change how we are living, how we are treating others and how we are loving God.
In 2009, artist Kris Allen sang a song called “Live Like We’re Dying.” In that song, he said, “We only got 86,400 seconds in a day to turn it all around or to throw it all away.” I have to wonder how often we think of the fact that every second is new. Each new second is an opportunity to do something different or better, to change how we are living. It is also an opportunity to throw away our time, to choose complacency over change for the better. If we have made a resolution at the beginning of the year and by January 12 wind up failing, even if on November 30 we remember that resolution, will we pick it up again? It is a new moment and a new day.
Can you remember that every moment is a new opportunity to make a new change? If you could not make it those first 12 days with your resolution(s), can you make it 12 seconds now? Then maybe 12 minutes? Then maybe 12 hours? Little by little, making changes in your life. May the most important change be that you grow in a deeper walk with Christ, seeing His new mercies every morning, not waiting for a new year or a major event to move closer to Him. Rather, choose now to be the right opportunity, not throwing this moment away.
