The coming of a new year can mean a lot of different things to different people. To some, its' just another year to welcome with senseless and deafening noise. And all is well until the smoke has settled and the explosions have quieted down. Then the day to day activity is back to the way it had always been, the same old ways, the same old habits and the same old sins.

For others, the frenzy created by buying splurgies in the middle of December extends until the end of the year and, to them, it is aimed to fill the house with plenty of everything with the belief that such is the best way to start a year if one hopes to have plenty of everything the whole year round. Suffice it to say, the coffers will as soon run out as God withdraws his blessings for their erring ways.

Then lots of well-meaning persons, armed with their newly-bought diaries, jot down a list of things to accomplish for the year. Among the items in their list are personal goals popularly known as New Year's Resolutions which are, more often than not, composed of vices to give up, personality weaknesses to overcome, bad habits to change, etc. The first days of the new year are characterized by puprposeful efforts to accomplish what had been written down. For the first two or three months, that is. Then slowly, purposefulness of efforts begin to wear off to be replaced by complacency until the resolutions, just like the ones that came before them, succumb to failure. The failure of course is not exactly for lack of desire but of will and strength. Human will and human strength.

For whose business it is to change man into what he ought to be? That of human will and strength through endless lists of things to do and things to change, or God's? Paul says, "Therefore, if anyone be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold, old things are become new." (2 Cor. 5:17)

For a faithful believer, the desire to change is translated into a humble and contrite heart that pleads to God and prays for His own will and power to change a person. However, knowing and trusting that it is God's own will and power that changes a man shouldn't make a Christian complacent in his effort to ask from the Lord that which he desires. Neither is it an excuse for him to dare God to change his life for the better while continuing to sin for the meantime while God does His thing. For unless the Lord has an immediate purpose for his life, the desire to change must start in man's own heart. "You have not because you ask not..." is one of biblical truths that is so glaringly true yet neglected.

The coming of the new year, then, should be viewed by us not as another opportunity to write down our own lists of things to accomplish but it should the a time to reflect on the things the Lord has done in our lives for the past year. And in every little thing that has changed, I hope we will be able to see that it is the same thing that we have allowed the Lord to change by submission. Every little dark secret that has remained, I hope for us to see that it is the same little weakness we have refused, intentionally or otherwise, to acknowledge or disclose.

New year, new commitments, new heart, new man. Let that be our way of meeting something new with new. If we do err in our choices and actions, let them be errors of judgment but not of hearts.