Most of us, I suspect, have our own long history of broken New Year's resolutions.
How many times have we begun a new year with the sincere intention of ending some bad habit and of finally setting ourselves to living life as we should have been living it all along and, after a very short time, have found ourselves again solidly embedded in our old habits and ruts?
Hence, most of us live lives not so much of quiet desperation as of quiet resignation: "This is the way I am! This is the way my life has always been! This is the way I will always be!"
The belief that things can be different, and for the better, is a crucial part of our Christian faith. To believe that there can be "a new heaven and a new earth" (and that we can be paragons of virtue and delight within it) is not something that takes its ground in natural optimism (for example, "I always see the positive in things.") but is something that is rooted in the belief that "nothing is impossible with God."
How to change? As Psalm 96 puts it, "sing a new song to the Lord."
