New Year Ponderings

A New Year
and a fresh start…

Isn’t it interesting that the “new year” begins at a time when we have just engaged in a time of consumer excess and dietary overindulgence? We may have maxed out our credit card and eaten just a few too many holiday goodies. We are contrite about having over-extended our finances and our bellies. We enter a new year vowing to do better, making resolutions of better fiscal responsibility, dietary choices, family priorities and other areas where we constantly fall down on the job.

Flip back through your 2009 calendar and look at how you filled your days through the past year. Does it reflect the life you want to lead? Is it filled with blocks of soccer practice, business meetings and/or unfulfilling time wasters?

Right now, as you flip your calendar to a new year and a new month, think about what you want your calendar to look like and block out time for those things. Make time for worship….block out every Sunday morning. Block out ½ hour every day to spend in prayer and contemplative thought that can center your heart and mind on the things that are truly important and give you the strength and fortitude to face the day ahead of you or reflect upon the day you have just completed. Make time for Bible study…block out Wednesday evenings in Lent, Sunday morning Adult forum or Monday evenings. Block out Holy Week and Dec. 11 & 12 for our 21st annual Live Nativity.

While we look at our new 2010 calendars and imagine the possibilities of what we can do with a clean slate, I suggest that we also take a moment to remember that God gives us a clean slate with each meal of Holy Communion. Make sure that you give time for worship a high priority on your calendar, because it is that for which you were made….to worship God and be in relationship with your creator and the family of God around you. Because of the sacrifice of God’s only Son, presented to us in a manger, we can begin each week with the confidence that even when we fail to keep our New Year resolutions, there is One who loves us, walks with us daily, picks us up when we fall and sets us on the path toward the fulfilling life He designed for us.

We have just offered the Nativity story to our neighbors through our gift of the Live Nativity. Keep the message and the gift of that story ever present in your own hearts and minds as you look ahead into 2010. How will you fill your calendar this year?