The Gift of a New Year
What will you do with the New Year God has given you? Will you embrace the gift of life and make every day count? Or will you squander the days with meaningless pursuits and frivolous activities? What choices will you make? Will you choose to continue to develop as a human being, with an open mind to explore unfamiliar ideas and the courage to consider new possibilities? Or this time next year will you be the exact same person you are now, only a year older?
A number of years ago, in a telephone conversation with a reference for a man the church was interviewing for a staff position, I asked the reference a series of questions about the candidate. The reference shared with me several positive qualities about the candidate, and I had almost finished the phone call when he volunteered one last comment. “Yes, he is a fine man,” he said, “and in the 16 years I have known him, he has not changed one iota.”
I could hardly believe my ears. Surely, he didn’t mean that. A man in his late 30s—a minister in a church, mind you—had not changed in 16 years? How could that be? Surely, I had misunderstood.
I felt I had to probe a little deeper into what the reference meant. I asked the man to help me understand his words, “he has not changed one iota.” To my dismay, the man doubled down on his comment. “He’s the same person today as when I first met him 16 years ago,” the reference said rather emphatically. “His beliefs have not changed at all.”
I’m sure the reference thought that he was making a positive comment about the candidate we were considering. I did not take his words that way, however. For a person to have remained the same for 16 years raised all kinds of alarms for me.
Change is an essential part of life. Just as we change physically throughout our lives, we should also continue to change mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Change implies growth in self-awareness, humility, ambition, wisdom, and knowledge—all traits signaling a maturing human being. Without ongoing change we stagnate and die. For sure, I would talk to other references before I reported my findings to the appropriate committee about this candidate, but the reference’s insistence that the man had not changed in 16 years left a disturbing impression with me.
The Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard believed that most people simply drift through life. They drift from one day to the next without any real focus or purpose. In other words, they exist but they never really live. Too many people fall into this category. Life becomes an endless treadmill, with today much like yesterday and tomorrow similar to today and so on. Little to no growth takes place. A person at 70-years of age is the same person she was at 25. Her time on earth has been unreflective, empty, and barren of any meaningful growth.
Statue of theologian and philosopher Kierkegaard in Copenhagen, Denmark
According to Plato’s Apology, Socrates once said that an unexamined life is not worth living. Socrates thought that to be fully human we must continually self-examine our lives and critically evaluate our beliefs and motivations. If we just drift through life, steered by our passions and emotions, without reflection, then we forfeit the image of God within us and are no better than the beasts of the field.
Of course it is comforting to just float through life, never challenging what we think we know, never risking too much, never daring to think outside the box. We can become so snugly encased in our unexamined life that we make little effort to change, much like someone lying under the warm covers on a cold winter morning blissfully ignores the responsibility to get up, dress, and go to work.
Or we can decide that the gift of life is too precious just to dream away our existence. We can make something of today. We can improve our lives in ways that make a difference—spiritually, emotionally, and intellectually.
Plato
So, what steps do we need to take to reach our full potential as human beings? What choices can we make this New Year to fully embrace the gift of life and become our best selves?
One, make a conscious decision to be a better person today than you were yesterday. Most of us have not even come close to becoming the person God created us to be. We are held back by our fears, prejudices, feelings of inadequacy, and the limits other people have imposed upon us. We remain frozen in mediocrity because we have accepted the false narrative that we can do no better. But you can transcend your circumstances! You can overcome your feelings of not being good enough or worthy enough. Decide today to prove naysayers wrong. Decide to overcome your weaknesses, bad habits, and thoughtless routines. Decide to be the very best person you can possibly be—today, tomorrow, and everyday afterwards. And make a plan of action! Don’t just think about change, do it!
Two, seek knowledge and truth. Many people settle for so-called facts that allow them to feel comfortable in their own personal belief system. Often what makes us feel secure is what we have heard from a pastor or a news pundit or a politician or a best friend. Maybe an article we have read confirms our biases, or a Scripture verse we have memorized convinces us that we have all the truth we need. That’s not to say that what we know is not true, but knowledge and truth rest on a deepening understanding and openness to new insights and are seldom inflexible categories. Knowledge and truth are journeys, not dead-ends.
Three, don’t forget to embrace your passions. It’s good to have knowledge and truth but you also need passion. We need passion in our lives to excite us and motivate us to get up every morning and to maintain an appreciation for life. Everyone needs something to live for and an all-important focus to die for. What is it that you are passionate about?
Four, break free from the crowd. Be your own self. Just because everyone else believes something doesn’t mean it’s right. Think for yourself. Don’t be intimidated just because someone else disagrees with you. Feel free to walk your own path, even if no one follows.
Five, love others, even those you disagree with. Love is the best antidote for hate, and love is the only road to God. Jesus said everyone will know that you are my disciple by the love you have for others. Regardless of anything else you might do, if you have not love, your life will remain stuck, self-centered, selfish, bitter and you will never reach your potential.
A New Year dawns before you. What will you do with it? Will you choose to change, to improve, to be better than last year? Will you make a decision that this year will be different!
