Broken Resolutions

“Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”  Lamentations 3:22-23

This is the time of year when many of us make resolutions; our New Year’s Resolutions.  Most of the time they are pretty typical stuff.  Someone will say, “I resolve to work less overtime and get more sleep this year.”  Someone else will promise to, “Have lunch with grandma at the nursing home more often.”  There is also the perennial favorite, “I resolve to get more exercise and loose 15 pounds this year.”  All of these things and all the others that people resolve each January are good things.  I am sure that all of us would be better off in our personal lives and as a society if we all made more resolutions and then kept them.

The problem of course is keeping them.  It is relatively easy to start January with an air of excitement.  I leave work proudly at 5 o’clock to go home and have an easy evening before going to bed early.  For a while I put off things at work that I used to stay late to finish.  I leave chores at home undone.  But sooner or later it all catches up with me and then I find myself staying late at work again and going to bed even later.  I wonder if workers at nursing homes see lots of extra visitors during January.  For a while lots of family come to visit with a steady supply of pretty flower bouquets and fresh-baked treats from home.  But it isn’t convenient to visit at the nursing home and so many of them have a funny smell.  Life just goes on and pretty soon it has been two months since the last visit and the time just disappeared.

I suppose some people have just given up entirely on resolutions.  They might say to themselves, “Every year for the last five I have tried to loose weight and I always failed.  What’s the use?”  It is a sad and melancholy feeling to fail.  So instead of failing they just never even start.  I would even say they have given up hope of changing for the better and instead resigned themselves to remaining the same.  Living life without hope makes everything ten times harder.

I think many of us treat spiritual matters the same way.  We have tried to be kinder, or tried to covet less, or tried to remain sexually pure.  We keep failing and sooner or latter consider giving up hope of ever changing.  There was a time in my own life when I had tried and tried to change and was considering giving up all hope.  But God truly is faithful and stands ready to help you and me start over.  You don’t have to wait until next January to make new resolutions.  In fact you don’t even have to wait until the sun comes up tomorrow.  The meaning in the scripture is that God is continuously and every moment standing by to help you and me start over again.  There is never any waiting with God when you want to make a fresh start and try again to change.  There is hope!

[PhotoCredit:Optical illusion & tchuntfr & Harveer]