considering your resolution options

Happy New Year!

Have you broken any of your New Year's resolutions yet? Or maybe you're like me, and still in the process of making them.

I usually reserve the week between Christmas and New Year's Day for thoughts of resolve. However, this year we were away in Kamloops enjoying Christmas #2 during that week. So here I am on the 2nd of January with not a concrete resolution in sight.

But I do have some resources squirrelled away to help me consider my options. If you're with me in the resolutionless boat, you might want to take a look at some of these.

• If you'd like to pull up your socks in pretty well every department, consider adopting Andy Andrews "Seven Decisions," which include: The Responsible Decision (The buck stops here); The Guided Decision (I will seek wisdom); The Active Decision (I am a person of action) and four more. They're listed and explained on The Seven Decisions (pdf file).

• If you want to spend more time in the Bible, Sherry (Semicolon blog) has assembled 52 ways to read and study the Bible in 2011.

Let me add one more. I've just finished writing a year's worth of daily devotions at Other Flood: daily devos, and will continue with this in 2011. I'd love it if you joined me there for the daily (linked to an online Bible) Canadian Bible Society reading and a few devotional thoughts.

• And while we're on the subject of the Bible and things spiritual, you might want to spend some time this year, sorting out your theology, especially as it pertains to bad stuff happening. Rebecca has written a thought-provoking post to help get you started: "Every Year After Christmas: Getting Your Theology on Track."

• If you're a blogger, and want your blogging to be more meaningful and God-centered in 2011, read, then download for praying over and over Ann Voskamp's "A Blogger's Prayer." (And don't miss the links to three more articles about blogging at the bottom of the page.)

• If your resolutions tend toward housekeeping, homemaking, simplifying, tidying — that sort of thing, a good online resource is The Fly Lady. It's a huge site, heavy with how-to. A good place to start is Beginner BabySteps section.

Happy resolving to us!

the gate of the year

The Gate of the Year

I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year
"Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown."

And he replied, "Go into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way!"

So I went forth and finding the Hand of God
Trod gladly into the night
He led me towards the hills
And the breaking of day in the lone east.

So heart be still!
What need our human life to know
If God hath comprehension?

In all the dizzy strife of things
Both high and low,
God hideth his intention.

"God knows. His will
Is best. The stretch of years
Which wind ahead, so dim
To our imperfect vision,
Are clear to God. Our fears
Are premature. In Him
All time hath full provision.
Then rest; until
God moves to lift the veil
From our impatient eyes,
When, as the sweeter features
Of life's stern face we hail,
Fair beyond all surmise,
God's thought around His creatures
Our minds shall fill."

by Minnie Haskins (1875-1957) from a poem of hers called "God Knows", in a collection, The Desert, published in 1908.

(Note: the last stanza of the poem was provided by an anonymous reader to the Line upon line blog [where it was published in January 2008]. Thank you! I'm not sure if there should be stanza breaks.)

Minnie Louise Haskins (1875 - 1957)

*****************

I first saw this poem on Just Thinking. Nancy tells us the story of the poem and its author here.

Related: "At the Gate of the Year"

This poem became widely known when King George VI quoted part of it in his 1939 Christmas message. Listen to King George VI's Christmas message, 1939 (audio).

new - 12

Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea.

Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God.

And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”

Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” And He said to me, “Write, for these words are true and faithful.”

- Revelation 21:1-5 NKJV

new - 11

"He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna to eat. And I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written which no one knows except him who receives it." - Revelation 2:17 NKJV

new - 10

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another." John 13:34 NKJV

new - 9

"Therefore if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new."

2 Corinthians 5:17 NKJV

new - 8

"This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.

But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness."

- Ephesians 4:17-24 NKJV

new - 7

"Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water."

- Hebrews 10:19-22 NKJV

new - 6

"And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them and said, 'Take, eat; this is My body.'

Then He took the cup, and when He had given thanks He gave it to them, and they all drank from it.

And He said to them, 'This is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many. Assuredly, I say to you, I will no longer drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.'”

- Mark 14:22-25 NKJV

new - 5

"The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were fasting. Then they came and said to Him, “Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, but Your disciples do not fast?”

And Jesus said to them, “Can the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast. But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.

No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; or else the new piece pulls away from the old, and the tear is made worse. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine bursts the wineskins, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins.”

- Mark 2:18-22 NKJV

new - 4

"He said to them, 'Therefore every teacher of the law who has been instructed about the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.'" Matthew 13:42 NIV

new - 3

"Then I will give them one heart and I will put a new spirit within them, and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh."
- Ezekiel 11:19 NKJV

"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh."
- Ezekiel 36:26 NKJV

new - 2

"Behold, the former things have come to pass,
And new things I declare;
Before they spring forth I tell you of them."
- Isaiah 42:9 NKJV

"Behold I will do a new thing.
Now it shall spring forth;
Shall you not know it?
I will even make a road in the wilderness
And rivers in the desert."
- Isaiah 43:19 NKJV

new - 1

He has put a new song in my mouth --
Praise to our God;
Many will see it and fear,
And will trust in the Lord

- Psalm 40:3 NKJV

Oh, sing to the Lord a new song!
Sing to the Lord all the earth.

- Psalm 96:1 NKJV

*********

A little word of explanation. In December this Rebecca did a 12-part series on 'light.' It was all scriptures about light, and how Jesus is the light. I enjoyed it -- how the simple scripture verses stood alone yet resonated with each other and all together painted a lovely picture of light.

It was then I had the thought of doing something like that myself. And so, in keeping with January and its place at the beginning of the new year, I have put together a series of verses about 'new' things. I hope it will give you a sense of new beginnings, new life and the new hope that a new year can bring.