Life Matters

Keith Bates

Congratulations! If you are reading this, you survived 2020!

While last year seemed for many people to have more challenges than most years, 2021 stands before us seemingly bearing many opportunities and possibilities.

Any New Year, but especially this time around, feels like an opportunity for a new start, a new beginning, a new chance to be the person we would like to be. It’s ridiculous to place so much value on what s just another date on the calendar, but we have this wired- in expectation that we can do so much better if we try a little harder.

This is the appeal of New Year’s Resolutions of course. We take the opportunity to make a new start at doing those things which we know we should be doing. That is why January is the busiest month for gym operators and February, not so much.

Did you make a Resolution this year? How is it working out for you? I find that the chocolate is still calling me from the fridge as much as it ever does.

So we want to be better people, in some way, and most of the time we find it’s too hard. We can’t do it ourselves because we are too trapped into old patterns of living.

In the Bible we read this interesting passage: “But to all who believed him (Jesus) and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.”

Being reborn sounds like the ultimate restart. You can get to do it all over and maybe not make so many mistakes this time around. Better still, the things we have done that separate us from God are swept away and we get a new start with Him.

Maybe this year’s resolution could be a prayer: “Lord I want to follow you. Please come into my heart and give me that new start.”