New Year’s Resolutions

Another year has come and gone and the mystery of time challenges us. Job had the same question.

In Job 7:6, we read, “My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle.”

As one looks backward, the years seem to come by swiftly. God created time. He created measured time by dividing light into periods of day and night. The origin of measured time begins here. Genesis 1:3-5 says, “And God said, let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.”

Since the dawn of history, man has made an effort to measure time. Some of the earliest devices for measuring time were the sundial, the hourglass, the signs of the Zodiac, and the stars. Today, we have efficient watches and clocks that are extremely accurate. Time itself is a strange thing. It quietly tells us that time never moves backward. It cannot be recalled. We never grow younger. Also, it teaches us that time has a beginning and will have an end. Every day ends; every night ends; every week ends; every year ends; and every life ends. When we pass out of time, we enter a state of being that has no end and is not measured by time. Time will merge into eternity.

In Ephesians 5:16, the scripture says, “Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.”

Translated, the word “redeem” means to “go into the market and buy up.” Perhaps the New Year’s resolutions should be based on this word. Most New Year’s resolutions are of temporal interest and connected with time. Redeeming time would be to fill up the time we have with eternal and timeless efforts such as not only providing our children with materialism but with spiritualism as well. Becoming a friend to those who are friendless.

Jesus said in Mark 12:31, “And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.”

Proverbs 14: 20,21 exhorts, “The poor is hated even of his own neighbor: but the rich hath many friends. He that despiseth his neighbor sinneth: but he that hath mercy on the poor, happy is he.”

We live in “temporal” but think in “eternal.”