I don’t usually make New Year’s resolutions. Maybe it’s the rebel in me, refusing to follow the pack.  Or maybe it’s pride, unable to see the areas over the past year where I have slipped and need redirecting.  Whatever it is, the idea of picking a specific day of the year when everyone is supposed to change their life for the better just seems way to inconvenient for those of us who don’t. 

Take the health gymnasiums.  I really enjoy working out, but every January, it becomes almost impossible, as my local YMCA gets over crowded with all of these resolution makers.  Wouldn’t it be easier and more convenient to say divide this up into all twelve months.  Say A-C make resolutions in January, D-G in Febuary and so on.

Just one problem, my name starts with a ‘K’ and I made a resolution to try to go to the gym more consistently this month also.  So what is it about January One, and the look that we all take at the last year?

I guess the answer would be ‘life’.  Life is what January One is about.  We as humans are famous for just blasting away at this thing we call life, but there is something about a new year that causes us to stop, if for just a moment, and look back, and wonder … what if.  What if we hadn’t just blown through it?   What if we had pursued some more lofty ideals than just rush, rush, rush?

We are told of a resolution that Jesus made.  Luke tells us that ‘as the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.’ (Luke 9:51).  This tells me a couple of things about our Lord.  First, that like us, he had to make some choices -- some choices that were not easy.  He, like us, had to determine where his energies would be used.  It also tells me that there was a timing to this choice.  He always knew that he was going to Jerusalem, but a time came when he needed to make a determined effort to finish that path.  And then finally, it tells me that he ‘set out’.  He couldn’t just dream of it or talk of it, action was required.

This is a new year.  Last year was good, but this year can be better.  Neither rebellion nor pride works in this battle.   I am resolving to be resolute, to purposefully pursue the place that the king has for me as the New Year unfolds. 

And just maybe I’ll lose a few pounds in the meantime.


To the King,

David