It's not the change in the calendar that makes us new
I don't make New Year's resolutions. I forget them as soon as the next crisis or trend comes along. I also have trouble connecting newness with New Year's. Maybe it's just too cold or still too dark. Newness seems appropriate on your birthday, but then I don't make resolutions then, either.
I've become one who, in my spiritual disciplines, find a passage of scripture (or it finds me) and I pray with it, meditate with it, say it over and over again and then I let it inform my life: How I act, think, preach and parent (as much as possible) until another passage of scripture adopts me.
The scripture passage that has become important over the last couple of years is Isaiah 43.19. God is telling the people, "Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. (This next part has really adopted me.) I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?"
I don't need trends or resolutions or fads to inform this next year. What I need are eyes to perceive the newness that God is making and a willing spirit to allow the God who loves me to take me somewhere new, perhaps somewhere I've never been before, confident that God is the one creating this new thing in all our lives.
The essence of Christmas takes me confidently into this next year. If Corinthians 5.17 says, "So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!" God continues to bring newness into our lives and invites us to become new in Jesus Christ. That's God's Christmas gift - newness in Christ!
It's not the change in the calendar that makes us new. God makes us new! No matter what day it is, because of what God has done for us in Christ, we are new. New! The things that have held us back in the past can't hold us any more. It's a New Year, thanks to what God has done, and what happens won't be dependent on any resolution I might make or break. The newness comes from God.
Our task for the new year, if there is one, is to listen to what God is telling us about what is happening and be open to what God is doing in our lives: "I am about to do a new thing (in your life); now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?"
Take this passage with you this coming year, memorize it, absorb the words and nothing will be able to hold you back, because the former things have already passed away - they're gone. God's preferred future is being created in you and through you right now! Hold on. It's going to be a great ride!