Happy New Day!

How are you doing with your New Year's Resolutions?

Still on the diet? Going to the gym? Decluttering? (that is mine and the answer is "kinda"). My husband is learning poems and he is doing really well so far - I am proud of him!

But they are not that easy to stick to are they? These promises that we make to live our lives differently.

What helps me is knowing that God's time is not the same as my time

These helpful words are from Ecclesiastes 3

¹ There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:

² a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,

³ a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,

⁴ a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,

⁵ a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,

⁶ a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,

⁷ a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,

⁸ a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

⁹ What do workers gain from their toil? ¹⁰ I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. ¹¹ He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. ¹² I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. ¹³ That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil - this is the gift of God

I think it says that sometimes we have to let God be God and go with the flow and try to respond to his time and not be in a hurry to make it our time. What it also means is that the opportunity to change our lives and turn around and take the steps we need to get closer to God don't happen only once a year. Because what do New Year's Resolutions do? Sometimes they just set us up to fail, to feel bad, to be less inclined to even try next time.

The good news for us, the great news is that thanks to Jesus death and resurrection for us, every time we come to him saying sorry, every time we share the ways we know we have fallen from grace, he picks us up and hugs us and says "I forgive you.

I love the way that it is expressed in the song by Amy Grant - Brand New Start

When I think of all the things he's doing for me,

It makes me stand in wonder at what he's making me to be

Trying to walk through straight but getting turned around

Always asking the Master to take a back seat and wait around

But I praise the Lord for giving me a brand new start each day

And I praise his blessed name for guiding me all along the way

If he didn't I wouldn't even try

I'm going to try and declutter still and I will encourage Phil in his poem learning, but most of all I am going to try and be the person God made me to be, to trust in him and when I need it, to receive a fresh start once again