Happy New Moment!

 

Have you given up on New Year’s resolutions? I have. Long ago. History (mine) shows if I want to make a change in my life that is big enough to require a “resolution,” I’m not likely to keep it for a year, much less a lifetime. Of course, I have made some beneficial changes in my life, but not usually connected to a calendar date.

If we wanted to make a New Year’s resolution on the New Year, which New Year should we use? Our Gregorian solar calendar names January 1 as the beginning of the year. It was decreed by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 to replace the Julian calendar, which made each year too long by .0125 days per year. It took some Protestant countries 70-ish years to agree to the change, so they operated on slightly different calendars. Chinese cultures use a lunar calendar, beginning in what corresponds to January or February on our calendar. On the Maori (New Zealand) calendar, Matoriki Day may be sometime in June or July, and different people in the culture celebrate it on different days. In Iran, Nowruz is celebrated for two weeks in March and April. Many cultures, including Hindi, name their new year in March or April, as spring seems a good time for new beginnings. And the Jewish first lunar month, Nisan, “the beginning of months,” established by God as the beginning of their year, falls in the Gregorian March or April. By the way, this year is 5781.  In addition, the Jewish calendar year has three other feasts called “New Year!” Actually one, the Feast of Ingathering, is called, “the departing of the year.”  Happy Old Year?

OK, now we’re getting somewhere. In the event I couldn’t make my resolution last for an entire year, I wouldn’t feel like such a failure if another chance came up sooner. So a broader understanding of the world would give me more chances to straighten up and fly right. I’m sure if I looked hard enough I could find more New Years, therefore, more chances to improve myself.

Or we could just look in God’s Word. God, Who does not change and does not need improvement, nevertheless renews his compassion, faithfulness and justice “every new day.” Lam. 3:22,23 and Zeph. 3:5.

When King Solomon intended to build a temple for the honor of God, he pledged to make “burnt offerings every morning and evening and on the Sabbaths, at the New Moons, and at the appointed festivals of the LORD our God.”  II Chron. 2:4.

The apostle Paul, facing death daily, claimed, “though our outward man is perishing, the inward man is renewed day by day.” II Cor 4:16

Both Eph. 4:25-32 and Col 3:5-10 contain lists of behaviors Paul is urging on believers, which are to be continually practiced, not merely attempted once at the beginning of belief in Christ.

God allows and accepts our repentance and renewal every moment! We don’t need to wait five more days to turn over a new leaf. And when we fail at 12:10 am on January 1, we don’t despair and wait 365 days to try again! Yes, we fail. Even the apostle Paul, who tried really, really hard to do right, admitted continual failure. But we don’t need to continue to feel like a failure. We can go ahead with our New Moment’s resolutions any and every second of every year!

--Lynda Shenefield