Resolved To Hope

I love Christmas and am always happy to see it come.  But I’m even happier to see it go.  By the time we make it through the marathon month of parties, programs, baking, shopping and travelling I’m ready to get the tree put away and get on with life.  I’m ready to bury the past year and look forward to a new one.

I’m not that eager to make new year’s resolutions though, because I know I won’t keep them.  I always have the same ones.  I am going to get organized.  I am going to exercise and eat right.  I am going to lose the baby weight since the baby is almost three.  I am going to keep my house clean.  I am going to make the most of each day.  I am going to be a better wife and mom.  In other words, I am going to be perfect. 

The stores certainly understand what we wish for by putting all their rubbermaid storage bins and treadmills up front and on sale.  I don’t think there is anything wrong with making resolutions.  The problem is that we’ll never be able to get to that place of perfection. 

A new year and a new start is the time for hope.  Hope is the heartbeat of the continual desire to be more and have a fresh start.  We long for a better future.  We hope. 

Hope is part of how God made us.  We desire the perfection that he created us for.  Perfection that is not of this world now tainted with sin. 

Romans 8:20-25

For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. 

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.  Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.  For in this hope we were saved.  But hope that is seen is no hope at all.  Who hopes for what he already has?  But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

All our cravings and desires that we write down on the first of the year are really looking for Christ.  He is Hope.  He brought hope to this world at Christmas but by New Year’s we are looking for it in the exercise or organization aisle at Target.  We can’t find it there.

Christ put hope in us when he made us. 

Colossians 1:27

To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

We can only find it in Him. We can find hope in knowing that someday we will have it all for eternity.  If you are looking for it anywhere else you will be disappointed.  I will be disappointed around January second or third that I was unable to keep my resolutions again.  But I’ll never be disappointed in the hope of Christ and the peace that brings.

At the top of my list for 2010 is to hope in the right thing.  The One that will bring hope to my life every day, whether I’m getting up and exercising or not.  Whether my house has all the toys in place in their little plastic boxes.  Whether I have a bad day and am not the best mom.  Christ offers hope despite all my imperfections. 

If you don’t know the hope of Christ, make that your resolution for 2010.  He is waiting for you with open arms full of love and hope. 

Lamentations 3:19-23

I remember my affliction and my wandering,

the bitterness and the gall.

I well remember them,

and my soul is downcast within me.

Yet this I call to mind

and therefore I have hope:

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,

for his compassions never fail.

They are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.