New Year’s Resolutions
I suppose that I should write a column concerning the making of New Year’s resolutions. I am pretty good at making New Year’s resolutions.
The problem that I have is keeping them. I imagine many of us are like that. No doubt there are countless folks planning on quitting smoking, quitting drinking or losing weight after the first of the year.
Of course most of us make our resolutions with the best of intentions. I am sure that most folks who plan to quit smoking, drinking, or lose weight are sincere in their commitments. In fact a few will be quite successful.
New Year’s resolutions have their roots in some supposed inadequacies that we find in ourselves. Most of us have something about ourselves that we do not like. It might be a bad habit or it might be something about our physical appearance. It might even be some secret that we do not want brought to light. None of us are ever satisfied with our selves.
In some ways that can be a good thing. None of us are perfect. We need to be reminded not to think so highly of ourselves at times. Arrogance has brought down countless human beings. In fact, we often times are unforgiving and intolerant of others because we see reflections of ourselves.
Yet, on the other hand I wonder if at times we are not too hard on ourselves. Yes, we all fall short of perfection, but the Bible establishes in the first couple of pages that we are created in the image of God. Regardless of our faults and blemishes we are God’s people.
I don’t presume to know how other clergy view the work of preaching, but their is one thing that my 18 years of experience has taught me and that is this—people do not need to come to church to hear how bad they are, they need to hear in church how loved they are. The world is pretty quick to tell folks what is wrong with them. People don’t need the church for that.
Maybe a good resolution for all of us would be to remember who we are. We are children of God, made in the image of God. If that is not a good starting point for a new year, I can’t imagine what is.