Starting Anew

I have never been one for making New Year’s Resolutions. As a child and young teenager, I always felt a bit weird at the New Year’s Eve parties my family went to with some close friends of my parents. They would walk around at midnight hugging everyone, wishing “Happy New Year” and then singing “Ole Lang Sign” as we stood in a circle.

I did not get it.  As you can tell, I did not get the meaning of the wishes nor the song for I even got the title of the song wrong. It is Auld Lang Syne. A song sung to bid farewell to the old year.

As I have become older, I recognize that the New Year Resolutions, the feeling that is expressed, is more like a date, a time, a line drawn in the sand to leave the past behind and start anew, afresh, looking to the future with positivity and hope and one of the best times to do this is at the start of a new year. It’s like a day set aside for the start of a transformation of your life. Even if your life is not bad, there is always more, better that we can aspire to.

In Romans 12, Paul the Apostle encourages us to be open to this transformation that the Holy Spirit often first starts in our hearts and mind. In the Greek the word heart and mind were often interchangeable.

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is- his good, pleasing and prefect will.

Romans 12:2 NIV

At this time of year, as a Christian, we are encouraged to give our plans to the Lord so that He will bless them. My thoughts often go to a question that I ask of myself and to God. “What is your will for my life?”

Well part of the scripture in Romans explains how you can check on and test this will of God for you.

First, by being open to the transforming power and love of the Holy Spirit working on and in your life.

Second, by having your heart and mind open to listening to God. You give Him your plans and thoughts and ask Him to open or close the door on them, to put them to God’s test – is it His will for you?

For God truly has a perfect plan just for us. We just have to trust Him and try our best to follow Him and His directions.

So, for me now, I look forward to asking the Lord to bless my plans for the year and if they are not His plans then transform me, change me along the way to align with His plans for me.

What do you do? Do you make plans and that is it? Does God become part of your plans for your life?

Remember God is interested and wants to be in the very fabric of our ordinary, everyday lives.

Happy New Year and may God bless you, your plans and your family this year of 2024.

May these jottings from my journal inspire you to believe in and fall in love with Christ- the hope of the world, as stated in Jeremiah 17:7, ‘Blessed is the man who believes and trusts in and relies on the Lord and whose hope and confident expectation is the Lord!’

Love

Rosemary and Emma

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

What do you do? Do you make plans or resolutions each year?

Does God become part of your plans for your life?

What could you do differently in order to commit your plans to the Lord this year?