Part of the series Who says…
Written by Léo Gaumont, published on 2014-12-29.
Taking a short break from our journey through educational strongholds, let’s apply our questioning to other established cultural icons.
Building on a foundation that God is, that He created the universe and that He ultimately is responsible for our children’s being, should provide ample substance upon which to build our faith. This lengthy series will identify the secular thinking that has eroded that faith.
Bible Reference: 1 Cor. 3:13
All things, outside of eternity, must have a beginning and an end. Our calendar ends on the last day of December and starts at 12:00 AM, January 1. It is natural for us to see this as a good opportunity to start things over, to purpose to do things differently and to resolve to become a new person at this time since it seems like a good starting point. New Year’s resolutions are, unfortunately, world famous for not continuing beyond a few weeks, at best. Why are these resolutions such failures? Because we use a bad foundation from which to make resolutions!
Faith need not even be applied to the question of human failings. Everybody knows that they are not perfect and those who have failed to make that discovery are usually obvious in this lack of insight, making them imperfect, even if they don’t know it. Something happened at the creation of man that caused us all to simply fall short of perfection and our resolve to fix it at this time of year fails because it is founded on us. A bad foundation cannot yield good results. We make a resolution, to improve our situation, base that improvement on the strength of one who is known to be lacking and wonder why it does not work!
Also at issue here is the notion that something new has begun on January 1. To be sure, it will be January rather than December and 2014 will shift to 2015, but is this a tangible thing? Time, like sand, just slips through the fingers. Children notice nothing new on January 1, just another day in a life. So we base our new years resolutions on an imperfect person, famous for failing and within a concept that is impossible to define. Confused? You should be! I do not want to discourage anybody from making an effort to fix their lives, but even well trained imperfection is still imperfection. Our house may be a fine house but it is really in need of repairs that are far more difficult than imaginable. It does not need to be restored as this would be a restoration of imperfection, which is, as mentioned already, still imperfect. What we need is not a restoration but a redemption, a return to the perfection that once existed, before the world began. In order to do that, we need a little help from He who began the world, who being perfect, can bestow that perfection on us through faith in the redemptive sacrifice of His Son and our Lord, Jesus Christ.
Who says there is a new year? Tradition based the position of the sun. More importantly, who says we can have a new life? God, based on the promise of His Son. A new resolution does not have to start on New Years day. It started the moment you accepted that promise, which is based on a perfect God rather than an imperfect you. This is not likely to fail.
From all of us to all of you, may you all be blessed in the coming New Year and thanks for reading my blogs.