After experiencing a year of setbacks, how can I embrace the New Year with renewed hope?
It’s a New Year, and time for reflecting on the past 12 months, looking for ways to improve or change. Thinking back may bring you satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment. Or you may feel disappointment and only see a heaping pile of setbacks. Bringing that baggage into 2012 can easily leave you feeling hopeless and expectant of more failure. This expectation can be a self-fulfilling prophecy, creating a cyclical pattern of mistakes. But instead of allowing these setbacks to paralyze you, hope can be restored with a change in thinking and proper perspective on those past experiences.
It’s important to realize setbacks are not demerits on your salvation. We live through grace and not performance. Christ calls us to pursue Him, not perfection on this earth. So embrace His grace first and foremost. Acknowledge that the mistakes and mishaps of the past influenced you, but they don’t define you. They informed you, but don’t condemn you. Instead of allowing those experiences to have power over you, take power over them. What have you learned through them that can help you live differently this year?
In any time of struggle and falling I’ve learned that relationship is key. We all need community with other believers who can stand by us, support us, and encourage us in times of need. We also need community to pour ourselves into, serving those whom God has brought into our lives. Were you more isolated or removed from community last year? Find a way to get connected through your church. Start serving and find a small group you can plug into.
Along with finding community we need to live authentic lives. We need to be vulnerable and honest with the things we struggle with. I don’t mean tell everyone under the sun your problems, but have one to three people you can share with. Tell them what you’re going through and the temptations you’re facing. Ask them to walk with you through those trials and pray with you. The more we are real, the more freedom we can embrace.
This year, be filled with hope as you pursue Christ and take the steps to find even more freedom. The Lord has brought you forward regardless of mistakes. He will continue to work and has a hope and future waiting for you. Let the scars of 2011’s mishaps be agents for growth in your life and healing in those you interact with. Renewed hope comes with a reorientation of our focus and thinking. Find out what did and didn’t work last year and prayerfully consider how to make this year more successful than the last. Remember, Christ is always with you. We can always be hope-filled knowing that He goes ahead of us and is for us every New Year.
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