Is it a New Year already?

Tonight is the night! The night we celebrate all that was and welcome in the promise of tomorrow. The funny thing about it is that I think few of us really reflect on what this year has been to us and doubt few are really thinking of the hopes that come with a new year. I enjoy watching the way people celebrate on New Year's Eve . . .what can I say I am people watcher. So many take tonight to mean that it their last chance to live out loud and a little crazy before the things apparently start anew tomorrow on January 1. Cause tomorrow brings an idea that we all can be something new and different with changing of the year. A clean slate of sorts. I suppose something magical happens between midnight and the next time the sun rises on 2010 that allows us to let go of the year and the past despite nothing really changing.

Many of us have a New Year's resolution that we swear by and promise to make a change: Lose those extra pounds, get those little projects done around the house, stop smoking, etc. Everyone has something different and start the year with good intentions. But as my good friend Jon points out in his blog, these commitment only are temporary most times.

Still there are so many times that we make these commitments, these promises to ourselves without having a clue why we are making them. And by this time next year comes around we will be making a similiar promise to ourselves. Why do we do this vicious circle: Hope, frustration, denial, giving up, and then moving on and ignoring that we ever made a commitment. Year after year.

Deep inside our head and heart is this ingrained hope that we can be something better than we are. That we can be the best version of ourselves if we only tried. Without a doubt I think that hope is very true and very much a part of who we are intented to be. We are meant to continue to grow and reinvent who we are as we get older. Who says we have to be same person tomorrow that we were today.

But change doesn't happen until the moment that you can look back and know yourself for who you once were. Is it possible we skip the most important thing of all in these resolutions. What does it matter to lose 10 pounds if your marriage is failing? Why give up soda and ignore the fact that you hate your parents? Does it really change your world to remodel the living room when you still haven't dealt with the pain of lossing a loved one?

Why are we making changes on the surface and not where it matters? Let's be honest for a second. The older we get the more that looking back, on the year that was, can get harder. There are more failures, more losses, more regrets, and more times we wished we could have done it differently. It doesn't mean that there are less good moments just more life to make mistakes in. The question is are we committing to change the things that matter.

Jesus never ask anyone to lose weight, never suggested drinking less Mt. Dew, and He never asked a man to replace the bathroom tile to make it a little more modern. This man always asked for things to change in the heart and souls of men. Jesus knew that reinventing ones self is not a matter of appearance but of a wholistic person. And most times it involved people looking back at their pain, mistakes, and recent past to know that is the type of change they really needed in their soul.

So my prayer for the last day of 2009 is that in the year of 2010 that you all are resolved and blessed by God to change deeply and intimately with Him and yourself.

As for me I am not ready to make a resolution. The new year doesn't start for me until pitchers and catcher report to spring training. ;)

Be Blessed