This is the time of the year that causes all of us to reflect on the past year and make promises for the next one. How many of us though break the promises before the second week of January is done? Why is it that January 1 seems like the magical time to commit to something and January 14 the day to give it all up?
I think the answer is simple. Instead of learning from our past mistakes we focus on the promise of a new start. As we are looking back on the past year we should study our mistakes. We should take a close look at what went wrong. If we learn from them, we might just have a higher success rate in this next year.
This all reminds me of the Old Testament. We are all so quick to judge the Israelites for falling away from God and giving up hope time and again. And then each time God would show He was faithful and they would return to Him. We make jokes about how many times it takes for them to get it. Well, shouldn’t we be doing that about ourselves? Doesn’t it take several times of falling and crying out to God, before we learn to pray first, before action? Don’t we all think we are just fine without God, and then find ourselves crying out to Him when it gets to tough? We are so much like the Israelites. I think we may even be worse. I am not sure if we would make it to the Promised Land in 40 years. I believe it would take much longer. We are all stubborn and believe our way is right.
This year I am praying that I truly reflect on the past year. There are some painful moments, but those are the most important. By reflecting on those, hopefully I can see mistakes I made and not make them again. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life wandering in the desert. I want to make it to the Promised Land. I want to see what a year totally committed to God looks and feels like. Will there be bumps along the way? Guaranteed. But, how I handle them should be a lot different
