02 Jan Three Ways to Make This a Happy New Year
“Hope springs eternal in the human breast.”
This sentiment, expressed by Alexander Pope nearly 300 years ago, is never more apparent than at the New Year.
The New Year is viewed as a time of new beginnings… a time when we can put behind us the memories of past failures and unpleasantries, and begin again. This time of year, we often greet one another with the words “Happy New Year!”
When we say “Happy New Year,” we are expressing our wish for the other person that the upcoming year will be a good one for them. It’s a kind and good wish, I think. I’m always buoyed by it a little, hoping that, in fact, the person is right and that it will be a good new year. However, the circumstances of some years are better than others.
But, for the Christian, we have ways to make a new year a good new year whether or not circumstances are to our liking.
Three ways that we can make this as good a New Year as possible:
- Face the Unavoidable
Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
So, we trust God for the unavoidable things that are hard – trusting in this passage, that God will use it for good.
We add to that the sentiment of James 1:2-4: “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
Trials are painful. If something isn’t painful, it isn’t a trial. But God will use the hard things of life to make us complete Christians. So, we trust, and lean on the Lord for His sufficient grace to face the unavoidable.
- Change the changeable.
If something can be changed within the will of God, we are free to change it! “God gives us,” Pascal says, “the dignity of causality.” That is, He sometimes honors us by allowing us to be agents of change.
1 Corinthians 9:24-27 says, “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.”
Paul exercised self-discipline and hard work as much as an elite athlete. So, if hard work within the will of God will change something, we are free to change it.
- Pursue the possible:
Romans 12:2 says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”
This year, our lives can be living proof of the fact that God’s will is good and acceptable and perfect if our lives are transformed.
And our lives can be transformed if our minds are renewed.
In large measure, we can control our own destiny, spiritually, as we fill our minds with good things, as we guard our minds from bad things, as we take things that are important and repeat them until they change us!
Conclusion
The fact is, the more we think about the next life, the better we will live in this one.
C. S. Lewis wrote, “A continual looking forward to the eternal world is not (as some modern people think) a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do. It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is. If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next.”
This world will never give us all we long for. When this world disappoints us, hurts us, and leaves us wondering if this is all there is, the answer is… in this world, perhaps. But in the next world, never!
When we end up longing for more, we must recognize that it is heaven that we long for. It is God that we seek.
So let’s aim for heaven this year, and we may get earth thrown in. But regardless of earthly circumstances, let’s use these three ways to make 2019 be as good a New Year as possible.
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