Pastor's January Message

It's fun to play with all the brand-new possibilities open to you on January 1. Go jogging this morning, and you've exercised every day this year. Get through lunch without eating potato chips or a candy bar, and this year reflects a whole new healthy and perfectly-kept diet regime. So far this year, perhaps you have never yelled at the kids, never forgotten to floss, never thrown your dirty clothes on the bathroom floor and never forgotten to read the Bible daily!

On January 1 your whole life can be transformed. For one day at least, all your good intentions can be jump-started, and all your bad habits can be unplugged. At least for a few hours (or minutes?), the year is a perfect reflection of your best self.

But January 1 is followed inevitably by January 2 and January 3. Someday soon you will opt for staying in a cozy bed a few more minutes rather than plunging out into the cold on that jog. Pretty soon candy wrappers will start appearing in your desk drawer again. By the 4th or 5th, you will surely have been aggravated enough at a bad driver or a dropped glass or a stubbed toe to have let loose a blue streak of bad words or unsanctified thoughts. By the 7th, your socks are back on the bathroom floor and your dental floss is gathering dust. By the 10th you fall asleep before you can even get the Bible open.

For all but a few of us, most New Year's resolutions get packed away with the last of the Christmas decorations. By Epiphany our behavior and the whole New Year are just as tarnished as they were before January 1. Perhaps this year your resolutions could be different and not so much about you?

What if instead of resolving to lose 10 pounds this year, you resolved to eat according to a diet that could sustain the whole world? What if instead of resolving to get more exercise this year, you resolved to exercise some spiritual muscles and organized a prayer-chain at Agricola?

What if instead of resolving to spend less time in front of the TV and more time reading some good books, you resolved to teach those struggling with illiteracy to read those books to you?

What if instead of resolving to spend more "quality time" with your family, you resolved to take your whole family on a mission project for a week, or a month or even longer?

Your life, your commitment to the ultimate resolution, can help the love of God through Christ to transform the world. A fresh New Year lies unblemished before us. What do you resolve to be on January 2 and for the rest of your life?

Pastor Tuula