Reality: 12/31/2011-1/1/2012

Like most holidays, a New Year really is what you make of it.  You can think of it as just an arbitrary, meaningless turn of a calendar page.  You can think of it as the solution to everything that ailed you in the year before.  You can think of it as the beginning of the end if you believe what the Mayans said about the end of the world and all that. 

Or you can think of it as a way to celebrate the eternal, unending work of God—making things new. 

All year long, every  morning, every tick on the clock, God is offering us the chance to be something new.  To be people who are not controlled by our past.  To be people who are free in the present.  To be people who are not afraid of the future. 

Read about how much God loves new things in 2 Corinthians 5 and Revelation 21-22.

Consider rooting your New Year resolution in Scripture instead of magazine articles or blog posts.  Go for something timeless.  Pick a verse and read it every day.  Commit it to memory.  Repeat it so often that you can't help but make it a part of your life.  You can look in the book of Philippians for some ideas.  Or the third chapter of Colossians.  I'm going for James 1.19 in 2012:  "let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry." (I typed that without looking—now i just have to figure out how to live it.)

If you want to dig into Scripture this year, and we hope you do, consider heading on over to YouVersion.com and trying out one of their reading plans. 

Have a good one SouthBrook.  Let's make it count.

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