Author: Jeff

The New Year is usually an exciting time. It provides a convenient point for us to both look back into the past and forward into the future and reflect on where we’ve been and where we are headed.

Often we spend our time making lists of things we’d like to do – “resolutions” we hope to keep in the next year.

Resolved: I will wake up early and accomplish something this year.

The problem, of course, is that by March most of us can’t remember what our resolutions were, much less how well we actually kept them. Many people who have lengthy lists of resolutions are discouraged by their continual failure to ever make it a full year and being able to say they actually did what they said they were going to do at the beginning.

Perhaps part of the problem is that a year is just too long. The reality is that each day is a new beginning. We wake up each day with the ability to look both to yesterday and tomorrow – to learn from our mistakes and remain hopeful about our future – and face the day with renewed courage and commitment. Each day we rise is new and beautiful, its canvas blank and ready for the brush we apply to it. We can view life as a series of evil days where everything is going downhill, or we can seek each day to paint beauty into the world around us.

As we enter into a new year, a year full of struggles, challenges, dreams and disappointments, my prayer is that we will see each day as a new beginning – that we will resolve each day to start anew on our commitment, taking light into a dark place.

“This man who opened your eyes – Who do you say he is?”

“He is a prophet.”

“He is the Elijah who was to come.”

“Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

“He is a good man.”

“No, he deceives the people.”

“We know this man is a sinner.”

“He is demon-possessed and raving mad. Why listen to him?”

“How did this man get such learning without having studied?”

“No one ever spoke the way this man does.”

“This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

“We have found this man subverting our nation.”

“I have found in him no grounds for the death penalty.”

“We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”

“All that John said about this man was true.”

“This man really is the Savior of the world.”

“Surely this man was the Son of God!”

“Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!”

“This man who opened your eyes – Who do you say he is?”

There are so many answers in Scripture for who Jesus is. It makes an interesting progression to look through and see what various people thought of Christ, and who they said he was.

While it is instructive in a reflective fashion, it is really far more practical than that. Ultimately, the most important question that each of us will answer is the one asked of the blind man.

“Who do you say he is?”

Do you schedule time for God?

Is your schedule so busy that he gets his
fifteen minute slot
among the rest of your appointments?

Does he get the best part of your day –
the first-fruits of your time?

or does he receive the afterthought prayer at night?

Does God get the best part of your day?

the leftover part of your day?

or does he get all of your day?

God have mercy on me.
God have mercy on me.

I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say that we compartmentalize our lives in many ways. It’s become acceptable, especially in our American culture, to separate and schedule. I have friends who literally schedule every minute of their day.

I wonder sometime how frustrated God gets with that mindset. Christianity is, after all, a lifestyle. It’s not something that you can simply turn on and off. It’s something that is with you every minute of the day, every day of the week.

We’re very good about “giving God” a certain amount of time every week, or if we’re good every day.

The problem, I think, is that God demands everything. It’s not “our time” to begin with. It’s his.