A Light in the Window

A Light in the Window
Susan Hoyle,
Pastor of Trinity United Methodist Church

Happy New Year! Here we are in 2009. For some of us 2008 rushed by so quickly we wonder, where did the time go? Or for others of us, it just dragged on and on and we’re glad that year is over. However it was for us in 2008, here we are just stepping in to 2009. This New Year is before us and how we live into it, for the most part, is up to us. How will you live in this New Year? Will you live “as if?”

Will you live “as if” may sound like a funny way to live in 2009. But, let’s think about that for a moment. When we begin a new year, we’re told to make some resolutions. You know, how do you want to improve in your life. We need a beginning point, so a new year just makes sense. We may have every good intention to begin a healthier life with better nutrition and exercise. We may try to stop smoking or drink decaffeinated beverages or give more of an offering to the church or read the Bible or ______ (you fill in the blank). In other words, we want to live healthier, happier, more spiritually filled lives. And that’s a good thing, that’s a great thing.

But then after a few weeks or a few days, these resolutions become so uncomfortable. We step out of this new place and lie back in our more comfortable ways of doing our lives. We had great intentions but they just didn’t fit us very well at all. It just became too difficult to continue, too much life got in our way, and it was just easier to go back to the way we were.

Yet, what would happen if we lived “as if” these New Year’s resolutions had been our way of life all along? I know that sounds a little odd, but let’s think about it. We begin this new way of doing life with energy and hopefulness. “Yes, we can do it this time,” we say to ourselves. We really do want to be healthier and happier.

It’s just not that easy to make big changes in our way of life. Perhaps we can begin in a small way and build up to a bigger life change. And with every step towards this new you, you have a picture in your mind of how you want to live or how you want to look “as if” these changes have all ready happened. With that picture in your mind, you have hope. Yes, it can get really hard to eat healthier or exercise every day or to stop something we’ve done for a long, long time. Yet, when we picture “hope” in our minds, that can make such a difference in our choices to go back to that old, comfortable way of life or to hold onto this new picture of ourselves. Hope makes all the difference in the world.

When we follow Christ, we know about hope. We know that through Jesus, God showered hope on this world. We know even when it’s hard for us to have hope, God holds it for us until we can carry it again. God has a picture in God’s mind of each one of us and that picture shows us living happy, healthy, Spirit-filled lives. And to honor God and to bring God the glory, we, too, are to have that picture of us in our minds and to live into that picture one moment at a time. We are to fulfill the hope that God has for us, that God dreams for us, every day of our lives.

May you know laughter, love and hope in 2009.