Fresh beginnings

The start of the year always gets me thinking about change and fresh beginnings. It's a little early for spring cleaning, but that is sort of the mode I go into this time of year. The holiday decorations are long gone and tucked away, so the furniture gets moved back into the normal spots, the carpet gets shampooed, and places are hopefully found for the new things received. The most expensive words around are uttered: while we're at it . . . why not wash the curtains now, and do we really want the sofa here or would it be better over there? Anything seems possible with a whole new year stretching out before us; perhaps that is why so many of us make resolutions to change at the start of the year.

We want so much to have a fresh start, to leave the past behind and move forward doing things right this time. This time, I'll do better; I will stick to my diet perfectly, I will exercise faithfully, I will be kinder, gentler, stronger—the list is endless. Unfortunately more times than not, within a few days or a few weeks at best, the diet is blown, exercise has become too hard to fit in the schedule, the resolutions have crashed and burned and we are left feeling worse than before. Why don't I have more willpower, or discipline, or whatever it takes to change? Why do I always fall back into old ways of thinking or behaving?

Too often we fail to recognize that just because we can turn the page of the calendar to leave the old year behind and start a new year, the past—our past—is not so easily left behind. If I try to ignore the things in my past that made me overeat or stop exercising or whatever else it is I want to change, I am most likely doomed to failure even before I start. Ignoring the past or pretending that it does not have an effect on me today is a bit like trying to patch a hole in a dam with chewing gum; it just does not work in the long term, no matter how brilliant a solution it might seem initially.

So if ignoring the past does not work in trying to change and start fresh, does that mean I cannot ever change things in my life? I mean, I have tried many, many times to change, and while I might have kept up the change for awhile, I always seem to go back to the old ways eventually. That does not bode too well for trying to change on my own. Is there a solution for this problem?

The Apostle Paul apparently faced the same dilemma. In Romans he talked about the struggle of doing what he did not want to do and not doing what he knew he should and wanted to do. The solution he offered? Jesus Christ, he said, can bring freedom and enable me to do what I know is right, to change the pattern I have followed and go down a new path.

When talking to one of the religious leaders of his day—one of the "good" people who was trying do everything right—Jesus put it this way: You must be born again. Whoa, hold the phone there; that's just religious talk, isn't it? After all, no one can go back and start this whole journey of life over again. That is not what Jesus was talking about, of course. He says we need a different kind of birth this time around if we want things to be different. Jesus offers us the opportunity to enter a whole new life with him, to be born anew through his Spirit into his family.

Don't get me wrong, here. Being born into God's family through Jesus does not erase everything that has happened to us. It is not a magic pill that makes everything wonderful, with no more struggles or problems. What it does do is give us a fresh start with a whole new family and the resources beyond ourselves to help us face our past and overcome it. There is still work to be done, and we may (and often do) still struggle with the issues that have troubled us before. The difference is we are no longer facing them alone, relying only on our own strength and willpower or determination to change.

Jesus offers us a fresh beginning at any time of the year, at any time in our lives. Thank God, he offers us a fresh beginning not once in a lifetime or once a year but every day, even every moment that we ask for it. There's a catch, however; we do have to ask for it. We have to first recognize that we cannot do it all on our own, that we need what Jesus offers, and then turn to God to ask for his help. God does not run out of mercy or compassion for us; he knows that we struggle and offers hope and freedom to us. The writer of Lamentations put it this way:

Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. Lamentations 3:21−23

January 13, 2008