A new beginning. A fresh start.
That’s secretly what we all want in the New Year, right? To make right all that has been wrong. To fix that problem, to repair that relationship, to pay off that bill, to clean up our diet – our language – our life.
But maybe what we all need isn’t so much a resolution, but a revolution. Webster says revolution is “a sudden, radical, or complete change” or “a fundamental change in the way of thinking”. Maybe we need a little less resolution – a little less determination – and a little more revolution, a little more radical change.
I remember a New Year’s Eve half a life ago. A teenage girl on the verge of adulthood not quite knowing who she was or where she was going. Sliding quickly down a slope she never saw coming. A “church-girl” caught up in the lie that the world could somehow offer more – more fun, more pleasure, more security, more happiness, more love – than the One who owns it all. She finds herself in a church service not all that unlike the thousands she’d attended before, but somehow different.
It was December 31, 1999. The clock inched closer to midnight as the band played and the preacher spoke. Then the time came. The revolution. When the middle-aged stranger in jeans and shaggy hair (why wasn’t he wearing a suit? aren’t they supposed to wear suits?) said the words that made the whole world go quiet. “There is someone here who knows all about God but has never met Jesus. If that is you, meet me here at this altar.”
In that moment, that not-quite girl, not quite woman ran to that altar.
You see, in that moment, I didn’t need to decide to do better. I didn’t need to resolve to change my habits, my friends, my life. I needed a “fundamental change in the way I was thinking”. Before that moment – before my own personal revolution – I thought I was in control. I thought I could somehow make life happen. But the beauty of life came in the surrendering it all. In the letting go of all that was so dear or what I so longed for, and grab hold of the only One who is worthy of control.
That day, the revolution came when I let go of the old way of thinking. The thinking that knew all about God. The thinking that could recite countless scriptures and sing every line of the hymnal. The revolution came when the knowing about turned to the actually knowing and being known. Isn’t that what we all really want this New Year’s and everyday? To know and be known?
Everyday can be a revolution. So today, 17 years later…I’m choosing to lay aside everything I thought I knew about God yesterday, and choosing to know Him more. Everyday. Will you come with me?
Are you in need of a little less resolution more revolution this New Year?
Great blog Bethanee… I agree whole-heartedly. He came…not to be relevant, but to be revolutionary!
Happy New Year to you…and here’s to going deeper in Him and being changed in the process.