Commentary by Rev. Michael VandenBerg
Every day you wake, you have the chance to start again. Yesterday’s mistakes can be today’s learnings. The troubles that beset you yesterday can become the strengthening points today. We humans are uniquely gifted this way. We can either choose to give in to the pressures of today and let them defeat us, or we can choose to turn them to our advantage and grow.
The New Year, filled with well-meaning resolutions, is but one attempt to overcome, reach higher and be better. We want to somehow make this day our “new you” day. But I want to tell you that everyday and any day can be just that if we find and accept the peace we can have with God. The Apostle Paul in his letter to the church in Corinth told them; “Now we look to see what is inside people, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins.”
Finding forgiveness for all our sins, all our shortcomings, accepting God’s forgiveness, forgiving ourselves and others is the new beginning we all crave. Once we experience God’s forgiveness we find we are at peace with God. Once we are at peace with God we find it easier to be at peace with those around us and with ourselves. When this peace comes, it brings with it a new beginning, a new you.
This same Paul told other believers that this then is how he can feel content in no matter what circumstance he finds himself. He has found a belonging that he never knew before, that came though experiencing God’s forgiveness and love and with that nothing else was as important.
This New Year, why not start not with a resolution, but a search? Search of the God of forgiveness that you may experience the richest sense of belonging and self-awareness possible. Who knows, this may lead to other satisfactions that lead to other changes that lead you closer to God. I know this is my resolve for 2016.
