I think solve is the best part of resolve, it implies solution. Resolution is a design, a plan to beat the recurring obstacle. We settle too cheaply for improvement when transformation, when victory is all that matters. The promise of a Messiah wasn’t a guide to better living but a gift allowing us to become new creatures. The choice, this New Year, as always, is ours, and our enemy’s plan, as always, is to obscure it with habits, attitudes, and circumstance.
It’s a mighty big ‘if’, to ask, “If you could do one thing differently, this year, what would it be?” To make light of a situation is usually meant to not take it seriously, but ‘if’ we take Light at face value it is the proper response to darkness and despair. Walk in the Light, become the Light of the World as He has ordained us to be. We can and ought to lighten somebody’s load. Lending a helping hand is useful, but considering our hands, feet, minds, and hearts as Divine instruments of peace is perhaps closer to the truth of the hope of glory residing in the Body of Christ.
Loneliness, isolation, bitter oppression are our calls to action. I do hope to exercise more, drink enough water, get enough sleep, and what ever other obvious self-improvement tips come across my InstaGram feed in the next couple of days, but what does it matter if I gain the whole world…?
The new year is already a week old, our ‘to do’ lists are filling up. Christ’s words “do this in memory of Me,” is not just a verse to repeat as we break bread and share the cup, but the resolution to all our inner conflict and inter-personal crisis. The year is new, not because we turned a page on a calendar, but because we turned our attention to Who, and what matters, because we turned love into our daily bread.
