Where is your hope?
It’s the last week of December and Christmas has come and gone. You’ve celebrated, in whatever altered state this year may have brought, and now life is slowly settling back into the mundane everyday. Your boss, so generous and giving as he handed you the end-of-year bonus, is now demanding the final steps of the huge project before the end of the year. Your children, so angelic and sweet on Christmas morning are now demanding the toys they didn’t receive and are wearing on your last nerve. Your neighbors, who called “Merry Christmas!” so cheerfully over the fence last week, are now giving you dirty looks again as you place your overflowing trash can out a little too close to their mailbox.
You may be asking yourself one of two things at this point, “What happened?!”, or, “Why can’t January come sooner!?”
Why do we think there’s something magical and certain about a new beginning? What happens when life just doesn’t maintain that particular comfort and smoothness that we feel through a holiday season? Why can’t we just get it together?
The problem isn’t our relationships or our routines, the problem is our very hearts. Scripture tells us that our hearts are desperately wicked and that we simply cannot trust them to guide and rule our lives.
Your children’s sour attitudes, your angry reactions towards your boss’ unreasonable expectations, the bitterness that grows with a particular neighbor, all have to do with the issues lurking in our hearts; the broken parts of us that only God’s grace and generous salvation can restore.
January first isn’t the answer to the humanity that we have to face again on December 28th, Christ’s sacrifice, death, and resurrection in order to secure us a hope and a future is what we must cling to. The world is so topsy-turvy right now and our hopes need to be in something more concrete and certain than a date on the calendar. Jesus offers us restoration, rest, and renewal every day of the year, whether we’re celebrating with joy or whether we’re deep into despair over the brokenness around us; our own or someone else’s. Set your heart on that hope as you step into the New Year.