Resolutions

With the New Year come New Year's resolutions, and despite being relatively busy and rather knocked down by this head cold, I have done some thinking about taking on a few of my own. There are a lot of things I'd like to improve upon during this next year, you know? I'd like to exercise more and eat healthier (the two most typical resolutions here in the US, I would wager), and I'd like to keep my house cleaner. Oh, and I'd like to finally decide upon some future plans for my life! But since God is involved in making that one happen, and since He seems to like me to proceed one step at a time, I probably shouldn't resolve on solidifying plans unless I'm looking for a resolution to break...

This morning, though, I started thinking that while all these resolutions are good, they are purely temporal. They exist in time, only touching eternity tangentially or indirectly, and they will pass away with time. But I, a human being and a child of God, will not pass away with time; eternity awaits me. If I am going to make New Year's resolutions (an idea very much rooted in the cyclical passage of time), maybe I should make them such that they draw my mind and my heart towards eternity and towards God. Maybe I should use this celebration of time itself to endeavor to remember specifically those things in time which are eternal in essence: the Lord God in whom I place my faith, the future glory and restoration for which I hope, and my fellow eternal souls with whom I walk through time and whom I desire to love as God has loved me.

So what do I resolve? First, to seek the Lord my God - to make knowing Him my highest priority and my greatest joy - and to do so in the strength of His grace, remembering that He always loves me and always desires me to try again to follow Him, no matter how often or how spectacularly I have failed. Second, I resolve to live with hope, resisting the temptation to despair that is for me so strong and attacks such a weak place in my armor, remembering that God has made His dwelling place within me - that He is always with me, will never forsake me, and has prepared a place for me with Him for all eternity, in the glory of His presence. Finally, I resolve to better love the people with whom I interact every day of this new year, to replace my irritations and criticisms with patience, compassion, and thankfulness, remembering that the God who died for my salvation died for them also and loves them with an unfailing love - that they too are eternal beings in need of Him, with their own deep sorrows and high joys.

In the end it all comes down to faith, hope, and love. Like the apostle urged the church of Corinth, I desire to let these three abide within me, that they might through the work of the Spirit transform my heart and come to characterize my life, that my life (though existing now, in time) might take on the aroma of eternity.