by Tom Wacaster
Someone once noted, “Many people look forward to the New Year for a new start on old habits.” I don’t know who wrote those pithy words, but he must have been some blood kin to Solomon. The passing of one year and the dawn of the next always seems to bring out the best of good intentions. In the final analysis, however, New Year’s Eve is no different than any other night and New Year’s Day quickly becomes just one more day on a fresh calendar. The earth continues to rotate on its axis; there is nothing in our universe that somehow marks the passing of yet another twelve months. Why is it that we tend to think more soberly and seriously on matters eternal this time of the year? What is it that compels us to make New Year’s resolutions, bid the old year goodbye, and look forward with renewed anticipation and joyful expectation on what the next 365 days will bring us? It is the realization that we have 365 days on the calendar to do with as we may, in hopes that by this time next year we will be able to look back with a certain sense of satisfaction and as little regret as possible for having failed to spend our time, use our talents, or take advantage of all those opportunities given to us by God.
In 1971, the late Glen Campbell wrote what I consider to be one of his best songs. The title, ‘Today Is Mine,’ and the lyrics remind us that each new day brings us untold opportunities:
When the sun came up this morning
I took the time to watch it rise;
And as its beauty struck the darkness
From the sky
I thought how small and unimportant,
All my troubles seem to be;
And how lucky another day
Belongs to me.
And as the sleepy world around me
Woke up to greet the day,
All its silent beauty
Seemed to say.
“So what, my friend, if all your dreams
You haven’t realized;
Just look around you
You’ve got a new day to try.”
Chorus:
Today is mine, today is mine
To do with what I will
Today is mine
My own special cup to fill
To die a little that I might learn to live
To take from life that I might learn to give
Today is mine
Now that 2019 is history, what are you going to make of 2020? Will the next 365 days be a repeat of the previous? Let me encourage you to make this year a year that will make a difference in your life. This means that resolutions need to be thrown into the dust bins of forgotten promises. Unfortunately, “Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account” (Oscar Wilde). Quit making resolutions and determine that you are going to truly resolve to apply some of the principles of God’s word to your life. The only significant change is that which is lasting. Anything else is simply wishful thinking. I’ll close with the following:
Another year to stand and watch
The old year passing in review;
And then to know before us lies
Another whence to start anew.
Another year for us to mold
Our lives according to His will;
Another year in which to find
The place that we alone can fill.
Another year prepares for all
A book with pages clean and white,
And what we do or leave undone
Determines what its hand shall write.
— George W. Wiseman
-
- How Can I Be Sure?
- What Ever Happened to Randolph Scott?
- Real Heroes
- Rewriting the Bible
- Regarding Time
- The Word of God Is Not Bound
- This Is My Blood of the New Covenant
- What Has Happened to Common Sense?
- Was Paul Deceived?
- The Just Keep Coming
- Calvary, Not Bethlehem
- Tax Day and Other Oddities
- Falling For Fads
- Separated
- The Greedy and the Gracious
- Padlocked
- When The Heart of a Nation Grows Cold
- Because of This One Man
- Whose Church Is It, Anyway?
- Arrivals and Departures
- Our Fine-Tuned Universe
- When The Impassable Meets the Immovable
- One Step At A Time
- Whatever Became of Sin?
- Unloading Cargo
- Was The Church Built on Peter?
- “I Will Build My Church”
- Upon This Rock
- The Debt of Faith
- Regard Not Thy Stuff
- God Will Keep Thy Soul
- Saved by Grace Through Faith
- Gathered To His People
- Against All Odds
- The Catacombs
- Mahershalalhashbaz
- Has The World Gone Mad?
- Lessons Learned From a Typo
- Christ The Sinless One
- In Search of the King
- That We May Live A Quiet Life
- With the Courage of a King
- Viktor Navorski
- The Beauty of Forgiveness
- The Fruitless Fig Tree
- What Must I Do To Be Saved?
- From Jericho to Jerusalem
- Christ’s Homecoming – Psalm 24
- On Books and Reading
- The Resurrection of Christ (Psalm 16)
- The Imperishable Word
- “And They Were Astonished”
- The Philosophy of One’s Life
- You Can’t Get There From Here
- Marriage Is for How Long?
- 21st Century: Age of Enlightenment?
- That Sinking Feeling
- Christianity in Action
- “My Way”
- There Is Nothing In A Name?
- Tradition: Like A Fiddler on The Roof
- Our Lord’s Triumphant Entry
- He Came Down From The Mountain, But Not The Cross
- Another Year Is Gone
- Half Empty or Half Full?
- Corona Virus and Abortion
- The Valley of the Shadow of Death
- The Certainty of Things
- “Must”
- Getting There From Here
- Know Of A Certainty
- Searching For The Lost
- There They Crucified Him
- The Grace of God Abounds Exceedingly
- My Responsibility Regarding Worship
- Not Given to Much Wine
- Don’t Neglect God’s Book
- “In The Beginning Was the Word”
- Greatness
- Wrong Way Riegels
- Curiosity of a Duplicitous King
- “Mama, What Are These?”
- Observations on the Cross
- Rooted in Inevitability
- Thinking And Thanking
- Out Of Pocket
- How Does That Make You Feel?
- The Stormy North Side of Jesus
- Dogs, Blessings and Burdens
- A Powerful Promise
- Polecat In The Parlor
- “Bid Me Come Unto Thee”
- A Civilization Gone with The Wind
- Fisherman’s Blues or Bounty?
- Some Personal Observations
- Paul’s Farewell
- “Follow Me”
- Wherein Is Our Battle?
- He Only Is My Rock
- Laying Up The Word of God In Our Heart
-
No comments to show.
-