New resolutions for January 2023

Everyone believes in change, as long as it involves someone else. Each New Year in January, many of us make New Year’s Resolutions about how we are going to change.

After Christmas season, people often feel remorse for having over-eaten and under-exercised. In early January gyms are flooded with new recruits, often lasting until February when our muscles begin to ache. So many New Year’s resolutions die on the altar of good intentions. We mean to lose weight, to become healthy, to eat heart smart. But life seems to take over and swallow up our best efforts.

In this 2023 New Year, we all have an opportunity to make new beginnings.  What kind of fresh start might you want to do?  For some, it may be about finally giving up smoking, or perhaps going to a twelve-step group to work on one’s addictions.  For others, it may be finally getting back to a local church after too many years of COVID lockdown and restrictions. 

All of us have the potential to become a better person, a more loving person, a healthier person. This never happens by accident. Twenty-twenty-three gives us a special opportunity to decide to be different. We may be involved in a relationship that has become very toxic.   This January may be an opportunity to finally go for counselling or coaching to work out one’s future.  

It is remarkable how much people spend on a divorce that they were unwilling to spend on counselling appointments.  We often say to people that even if you cannot ultimately save your marriage through counselling, you will bring healing to your body, mind and spirit.  Personal transformation however is hard work.

Jesus the Great Physician was always challenging people to become healthy, to choose life, to learn to forgive. Imagine how our lives might change if we actually applied Jesus’ practical advice in this 2023 New Year. Imagine what might happen if we choose to read a passage of scripture like the Sermon on the Mount, like Gandhi did every day, and actually apply it to our lives? Imagine what might happen if we became honest with God and told him what was really going on in our lives?  Sure, God already knows.  But when we open our hearts and minds to God, it is amazing what may begin to occur.

The Bible says “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” (Isaiah 43:19). 

How would you like God to do a new thing in your life in this year ahead? 

What kind of sacrifices are you willing to make so that practical changes actually happen?  What kind of person would you like to be by the end of this year?  May God do a new thing this year in each of us physically, emotionally and spiritually.  

May we seize the day and embrace new beginnings in this New Year.