What's a New Year about???

I will confess at the beginning of this post that I do not do New Year's Resolutions.  I figure it's January 2nd and I would have already broken whatever resolution I had...so why waste the time.

So I was thinking, what is the big deal about a New Year?  It is not like much is new.  The calendar turned and it was 2018, that's about it.  Your life hasn't changed all that much, I'm assuming.  If you had kids at home, you probably still do.  If you have a job, you're probably going back to that same job.  If you were married, your spouse didn't change. If you have a home, it probably didn't change from 11:59 PM on December 31st to 12:00 AM January 1st.

We carry the same baggage from one year to the next and to be honest that sucks.  I want new...I want the mistakes of 2017...and 2016...and 2015...and so on...to be gone and to not be affected by them.  I want them to vanish and for it to be truly new.  But the same baggage is still my baggage.  It will get better (it has gotten better), it will get easier (it has also gotten easier), but it is still my baggage. So what is the New Year's all about?

It's about resolutions...I know I just said I didn't do them, but follow my train of thought.  Why do you set New Year's Resolutions?  You set them because you have hope that something(s) will be different in 2018.  The New Year, even the resolutions, are about hope.  We hope for change.  We hope for better.  We hope that it will be a year we remember for the good that was in it...not the bad.

1 Corinthians 13:13, "These three remain faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love".  Hope was always the oddball in that statement to me.  I get love, "Love the LORD your God...love your neighbor".  I get faith, "It is by grace you have been saved through faith.".  These two are essentials in salvation, I get them.  But hope?

Hope is that thing we don't quantify very well.  We hope in Christ for eternity, but often times that is where hope in God stops, when it should actually be just the beginning.  Our hope should be firmly planted in Christ.  When work is not great, we should hope in Christ.  When there are family struggles, we should hope in Christ.  When a year has turned bad, and it's only two days in, we should hope in Christ.

Let this New Year be about hope.  Don't hope in your power to accomplish your New Year's Resolution.  Don't hope in a job or a relationship.  Hope in Christ!  When things are great, let your hope be in Christ.  When things are bad, let your hope be in Christ.  Hope is that thing that is hard to quantify, but is essential.  Our hope should not be in things that will pass away.  Our hope should be in the one thing that will never pass away!