Tuesday 24 January

Happy new year!  It has been a strange start hasn’t it – for many of us the holiday break delivered only one sunny day for every six rainy ones.  It seemed that each time our family decided to go to the park or beach (just as we were packed and had opened the door) it would rain, holding off any adventure.

It has felt like this has happened to me in other areas of life too.  I normally have at least three or four new year’s resolutions on the go but this year, try as I might, nothing has sprung to mind.  It’s worried me.  I’ve gone into the year with no resolutions.  No plans.  No goals.  Will this year drift past me as I aimlessly float through it, becoming nothing, doing nothing?  To some of you these worries must sound silly, but others may know that fear of an uncontrolled, unordered life.

And yet the year has begun.  And there has been no disaster yet.  In fact many unexpected things have happened, including being able to open our home to an unexpected international visitor.

Proverbs 16 verse 1 says “We can make our own plans, but the LORD gives the right answer.”  In God’s hands my year is resolved.  He has a plan.  He has goals.  To try to listen to his leading.  To respond to his call.  To keep space for his right answers.  These are all worthy resolutions.  So maybe I’m not without new year’s resolutions after all.  As James says,

“Look here, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit.” How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone. What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.”

- James 4 v 13

Maybe what this year is really for is to acknowledge the place God has always had in my life.  The One who will bring any good thing worth having, the One who will gently change me to be more like Him.  My resolution this year is to try to let Him.