As the final set of the celebrations wind down, the last of the season’s guests leave and the festive décor and travel suitcases are put away…there is still a lingering of the busyness, punctuated by the occasional lulling lethargy.
There is the excitement of a new year and all that it promises to be. Most of us are catching our breath, yet there is the buzzing expectation of what the New Year could unfold, willing 2025 to be the year of transformation!
I have given up making resolutions because I know from experience that they would last only as long as the sheen of the excitement lasts or my dwindling willpower holds up.
My attempts to read the Bible from cover to cover in one year has led me to pursue several reading plans and devotionals, all of which I give up eventually.
The multiple pacts to give up sugar has become our staple family joke; my efforts at a regular walking schedule has veered off course more times than I can count.
I had promised my husband that I was merely going to ‘experience’ the handicraft exhibition, but from years of experience he knew that I would have my hands full of all kinds of crafts! The minimalist décor I had envisioned would have to wait its turn.
My children are still waiting to try out the homemade version of KFC I promised them during the summer holidays (a few summers ago). They are also waiting for the day when I will not snap at them and say, ‘Because I said so.’
The curated booklist that I put together on a fancy ‘to-do list’, with the tick-off box is quite incomplete because I got so hooked onto learning to organize my day from ‘influencers’. I am so far behind on my decluttering/cleaning schedule. And this is just a peep into the things I had hoped to get done and cross off my list in 2024.
I honestly know there are numerous other areas in my life that ‘I’m a slow work in progress.’ But as 2025 rolls around, I know that I cannot do this on my own. Even as I tend to get distracted, overwhelmed and give up even before I get started, I hold onto this Bible verse that reminds me “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” (Genesis 18.14)
A footnote in the Life Application Bible reads: Is anything too hard for the Lord? The obvious answer is, ‘Of course not!’ The question reveals much about God. Make it a habit to insert your specific needs into the question. ‘Is this day in my life too hard for the Lord?’ ‘Is this habit I’m trying to break too hard for Him?’ Is the communication problem I’m having too hard for Him?’
Asking the question this way reminds you that God is personally involved in your life and nudges you to ask for His power to help you.
Over the years, I have come to rely more and more on this verse and the reminder that has become deeply personal. I have seen for myself that I can invite Him into my chaos and indecisiveness, my fears and anxieties, my lack and limitations, my absolute nothingness and know without a shadow of doubt that ‘nothing is too difficult for the Lord.’
May 2025 indeed be the year of transformation for us - transforming us to rely not on ourselves but on the Lord God who reminds us that nothing is impossible for Him. May we invite Him into the mundane and the ordinary, the lists and resolutions, the purposes and the pursuits, the inventories and the impossibles.
Above all that, I pray that 2025 be the year of personal transformation - where each of us grow to be more and more Christ-like. Whatever be our ambitions and dreams and desires and hopes and bucket lists for the coming year, may our desire to be more Christ-like in every aspect of our lives override everything else.
May that be our resolution and may that top our to-do lists not just this new year, but every year.
As we check off boxes and cross off items off our lists, may this one be a constant year after year Christ-likeness: to be continued.
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
