The Best New Year’s Resolution

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 3, 1907

The Best New Year’s Resolution

MANY a person, Christian and non-Christian, has resolved at the beginning of the new year to “turn over a new leaf.” They were dissatisfied with the record they knew they had made during the past year, and earnestly longed to live a better life. It is very probable that at the beginning of last year they made a similar resolution. It is very probable that at the beginning of next year they will do the same thing; and at the close of each year look back upon a life of regrets. What is the trouble? First, these resolutions have come year by year instead of day by day and hour by hour. They have been made in human strength, with little or no dependence upon the arm of God, when they should have been made with a full realization of human weakness and a knowledge of the fact that the flesh of itself is unable to carry out anything that the mind may will, and that God only can furnish the strength requisite for the undertaking. The best resolution we can make is to surrender our wills, ways, and our all to God, that he may use us as he wills, in his ways, and let that resolution go on from hour to hour, year in and year out. When that is done, self is dethroned, and we can look back without harassing regrets upon the way in which God has led us, and the things he has accomplished through us.