I’ve never been a fan of the annual declaration “New Year, New Me”. I always wondered “what is so wrong with me that I have to be made into a new me every year?”. The declaration has fallen out of favor in recent years but that doesn’t stop people from making resolutions or plans to change. It makes sense, moving to a new year reminds us that time is not static. It reminds us that change is ever present, and it can feel like a good point to evaluate our lives and make decisions about how we want to venture into a new season. We make our plans to workout more, eat better, read through the entire Bible, learn a new skill, take up an old hobby, get together with friends, travel, finish that book we’ve been planning to read forever, etc. We make our plans and often, not always but often fall short. I have also seen a bunch of people joking that no one should declare that “this is my year”. The past few years have been a crap-shoot of misery and we shouldn’t tempt fate by being excited about what is ahead. We should enter the new year calmly and carefully.

There’s an old Yiddish adage that comes to mind “Mann Tracht, Un Gott Lacht” which means “Man plans, and God laughs” or my personal favorite “The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men Gang aft agley, An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain, For promis’d joy!”/ To a Mouse (Robert Burns). This line from Burns’ poem is often translated “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry” but we rarely include the end of this thought “and leave us nothing but grief and pain instead of the promised joy”. Appropriate as these may seem in light of shattered resolutions, broken plans, and horrible years, I don’t believe that God laughs at our plans. I wonder if his heart is a bit like mine when I listen to my nieces and nephews concoct grand schemes for adventures. I love to listen to them dream up awe-inspiring building projects, weave fanciful stories, make glorious plans and set audacious goals, knowing full-well that they’ll never come to pass. There is a joy in hearing them describe their wild dreams and an even greater joy in helping them try to make something out of those dreams. The end result is never quite as fantastic as what they imagined but it is still beautiful, and watching their intense faces of concentration and hard work, followed by giggles and laughter are the gifts of those moments of plans gone awry. I love Proverbs 16:9 because I think it’s more like those moments with my little loves than the image of God laughing at our plans. In the Amplified version it says “A man’s mind plans his way (as he journeys through life), but the Lord directs his steps and establishes them”.

I love the word establish. It means “to set up or put on a firm or permanent basis”. Who better to establish something in my life than God. The Bible is full of verses about his faithfulness and constancy. James 1:17 tells us “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” Hebrews 13:8 says that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.” Deuteronomy 32:4 calls Him “The Rock – his work is perfect; all his ways are just. A faithful God, without bias, he is righteous and true.” No offence to Dwayne Johnson but this is The Rock that I want to be established on. This is the one who directs and establishes my steps. Last year I started thinking about how to be more intentional about following his direction for my steps. What does that look like? The obvious answer is to follow the will of God…yay for church platitudes, she says with heavy sarcasm…following the will of God is an obvious answer but can be a difficult practice. People have driven themselves to near madness trying to discern the will of God for their lives. That is a weighty and personal conversation I’m not going to get into here but I will tell you where I started and how it has helped me to make my plans and trust his direction.

The second half of 1Thessalonians 5 is a little passage that, in my Bible, carries the heading “Christian Conduct”. It covers how we’re to relate to one another and carry ourselves if we bear the name of Christ. Verse 18 is one of those verses that gets quoted a lot and for me it was the key to finding God’s will. It says this (again in the Amplified version) “in every situation [no matter what the circumstances] be thankful and continually give thanks to God; for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.” So, the will of God for me is to be thankful and continually give thanks to God. Gratitude, consistent and earnest gratitude is God’s will for me. As I make my plans and I set forth my hopes and desires I do so fully recognizing that God will direct my steps and his will is that I walk with gratitude even when my plans and his direction don’t line up the way I want them to.

When we quote 1 Thessalonians 5:18 we often misapply it. We hear “for everything give thanks” but it says “in everything give thanks”. This is the power of words and an important distinction! For is one of those common words that doesn’t really get evaluated. For carries a vast array of meanings but when we talk about being thankful for something it carries the meaning “because of” or “with respect to”. Giving thanks for everything is not only difficult but very nearly psychotic. We expect to be thankful for happy things and desired outcomes but, if we go around telling people that we’re thankful for a devastating circumstance they might question our sanity. Being thankful for everything also makes liars out of us and a holy God does not call his people to be disingenuous. I’m not thankful for my Dad’s death. I’m not thankful for unexpected job loss or sickness. I’m not thankful for cruelty and pain. However, I have been thankful in those circumstances.

In is another word that we don’t bother to define. In “expresses the situation of being enclosed or surrounded by something”. To be thankful for God’s faithfulness while surrounded by difficult circumstances is how we can see his direction meet our plans without being crushed, disillusioned or broken. It is honest and genuine to say I’m not thankful for my Dad’s death but I am thankful that God carried me in that season. I can say I’m not thankful for the loss of a job but I am thankful that God has continued to show himself faithful while looking for a new job. I can be thankful in a surrounded place because, like the calm in the eye of a hurricane, God is with me, establishing me, growing my faith, showing me his faithfulness, while circumstances swirl around me like a devastating storm. Being thankful in everything takes practice. It is not easy to walk in God’s will over our own but like any habit the more we do it, the easier it becomes.

Last year I started a “Gratitude Jar”. It’s a quart canning jar that I keep by my desk. Whenever something happens that I want to remember I jot it on a scrap of paper and put it in the jar. On New Year’s day I opened my jar and read the blessings. Some of them were easy to be thankful for like “Anya (my niece) got baptized” and “my Crown of Thorns plant blossomed”. A lot of them were “in” moments of gratitude like this one “the whole house air conditioner died but was replaced quickly and God provided financing, and I am believing he will continue to provide the money to pay if off quickly.” I’m not grateful for my air conditioner giving out but in that circumstance I could see God at work and I am grateful for that. Here’s one that made me laugh; my mom had knee replacement surgery early in the year and one of my notes said “Mom is 2 weeks post op and we haven’t killed each other”. I am grateful for the surgery that has given her back her mobility and has been a life-changing gift for her. In the moment of recovery I wasn’t thankful for the frustrations of her post-op care but I was thankful that in the mess we were surviving by God’s grace.

So back to my original thought. It’s a new year and I have no need to become a “new me” because I’m already made new in Jesus; “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come! 2 Corinthians 5:17”. I am going to call it, this is my year! (I don’t believe in fate or karma so I have no qualms about calling it my year.) This could be a horrible year filled with terrible circumstances for which I am not thankful; but it is my year of continuing to follow God’s will and have him direct and establish my steps. Gratitude in every circumstance is not the whole story but it is a great start. Over the past year of intentionally practicing gratitude I have noticed that I’m not as shaken when my circumstances are less than desirable. I can be thankful in them and see where his direction is better than my plans. Here I am at the start of a new year. The “Gratitude Jar” has been emptied and is ready for a new year of moments that I have been thankful in and I know that it will fill quickly because the year may be new but God is the same!