What is your New Year’s tradition?

We’ve been to a few parties and have participated in watch services of prayer and praise to bring in the New Year. I’ve also made resolutions, but haven’t done anything consistently enough to establish a tradition.

However, with the change of the calendar year, I do look back to see what God has done in previous months, and to review what I learned about life through things that happened in the past year.

I also look forward, asking, “Where am I going? What does the Lord want from me in the year ahead?” I have an inner since of making a new start and a question of, “Lord, what are you saying to me?”

His word to me this year is being reinforced by the deep cleaning we are doing as we transition an inherited house into our home. As I clean out “their” closets and drawers, I run into things that have not been used in years. As I take our boxes out of storage and go through them, I wonder, “Why did you keep this?”

I’m keenly aware that “stuff” is cluttering our house—and thus our lives.

I’m also increasingly aware that harmless—even good—“stuff” can quickly crowd out better things in life. I’m seeing that good can rob us of better. It can even cause harm–that we’re likely not aware of.

This is true in our spiritual lives too—probably more than in our physical lives.

In the last days it has also occurred to me that years ago, nearly every prayer included the clause, “and forgive us our sins.” The phrase was used so much that I heard a sermon from the ’80s about how that petition could become a meaningless ritual and that we needed to be specific in confessing our sins.

Today, I rarely hear anybody ask forgiveness for “our sins” unless they are repeating the Lord’s prayer. It seems that we’ve swung so far in focusing on God’s love that we forget that our sin separates us from the source of that love.

As I find forgotten things in closets and drawers, I wonder how much “stuff” I have hidden in the closets and drawers of my heart in the past year—or years. How many sins have I let pass without seeking forgiveness, i.e. without clearing out the dregs?

How many times have I grumbled, complained, or coveted rather than being grateful in all things? How often have I said hurtful or empty words, rather than being an encouragement? How often have I sought my own pleasure rather than seeking the Lord? How many times have I kept quiet when given the opportunity to give credit to God for His goodness and faithfulness? And so forth.

How much clutter have I deposited this past year?

“If we confess our sins, [the Lord] is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1John 1:9).

When we don’t confess our sins, do we bury them in forgotten places of our hearts, like the forgotten stuff I’m finding and throwing out?

In Psalm 19, David prayed, “Who can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden faults. Also keep back Thy servant from presumptuous sins; Let them not rule over me; then I shall be blameless, and I shall be acquitted of great transgression” (12-13).

In David’s words, it seems our “stuff” may not be harmless at all. It could rule over us. Some of it could be “great transgression.”  The New Year is a good time to do spiritual house cleaning to get rid of the stuff that clutters our soul, an opportunity to unburden our souls of unneeded stuff.

We can then begin the New Year with a clean heart and a fresh start.

David offered prayers that are appropriate for the New Year, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way” (Ps. 139:23-24).

“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer” (Ps. 19:14).

Do you seek a fresh start in the New Year? What do you do?