New Year's Revolution

  Some folks at work were laughing recently about a verbal gaffe someone had made. After a string of such malapropisms most of this school year, they mentioned New Year's revolutions, meaning to say resolutions. I shared in the laugh, but trying to be helpful, offered that to revolve means to turn around, so perhaps this person was just promising to turn it all around in the new year.

  However, in the intervening days, I realized that a revolution of that sort simply brings you back to where you started. The earth revolves around the sun and, in some ways, the earth ends where it started. This seemed dissatisfying to me; I really liked the original analogy! So, a quick trip to dictionary.com turned up the following possible definition for "revolution":

     "a sudden, complete or marked change in something: the present revolution in church architecture"

  I have several small resolutions this new year. Mostly they come down to being a better man, to removing some of the sin I regularly walk in, to break some bad habits, to build some good ones, and also to be more organized and timely about things. But what I hope all these things lead to, by the grace of God alone, is a New Year's Revolution: a complete and marked change in me.

  An apparently popular verse around this time of year is Ephesians 5:17: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!" The New American Standard Bible translates the verse as: "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come." (Emphasis added.) This year, I want to be that new creation. I want to be that new creature. I want a New Year's Revolution, God making a complete and marked change in me.

  What are your New Year's resolutions? (Or revolutions!)