Well that is roughly how I feel about New Year Resolutions.
Coming to the end of the calendar year it seems like I am riding an out of control steam train that keeps getting faster and faster.
Those last few months of the year I’m sure are somehow deleted from reality as they go that fast I could swear they never existed.
So when January all of a sudden turns up, I feel like the steam train has just magically stopped, and all I want to do is climb off, kiss the ground and not get back on.
Unfortunately, the reality is that regardless as to how we feel life keeps moving forward at “full steam ahead.”
So while I don’t like New Year Resolutions, I see the value they hold and what I do at the start of each year is I begin to plan and vision out what could be possible this year—all the things that could become a reality.
And when I do this it feels as though I have a blank canvas in front of me waiting to be painted.
So, a question I would pose to everyone is: “What good could take place this year?”
The very first lines in the bible read…
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.
When I read this I see a blank canvas ready for painting. And I see God dreaming about what could/will become. It starts with God creating nothing more than a round ball.
No continents, no people, no plants, trees, animals; nothing. It was empty and covered with darkness.
Isn’t this something similar to what we all in some way stand in front of at the beginning of each year; a blank calendar?
I like how with this blank canvas God was looking at and how, despite its darkness, amongst all the nothingness, His Spirit was hovering, ready to release and bring to life vision. Could it be that God’s Spirit is hovering over that blank calendar you are looking at? Could it be He has something in store for you, ready to be activated this year?
Could it be that this year God is wanting to fill your calendar with hope, with promise, with life?
I wonder, as we move further and further into 2019, what would this year look like if we allowed God to fill our calendar with hope, promise and life?
While I don’t know the exact aspects of what that would look like for all of us, what I do believe is that it would look like an absence of futility, hopelessness and despair.
Rob Wiltshire
Epicentre Church