Create in me a clean heart, O God and put a new and right spirit within me.
-Psalm 51:10
Happy New Year!! 2024 is here! A new year gives time for pause, a time to reflect, and a time to review
where we have been and where we are each going.
What new traditions or habits do you plan to add or subtract from your life? So many times, I hear people
talk about what they are “giving up or not going to do in the new year but I challenge you to look at what
good things you might work to add to your lives! I’m not talking about anything momentous, although that
would be fantastic as well, let’s think simple, think easy to weave into your already very full life. What
might that be? What might that do for your new year?
Maybe making a “new year’s resolution” isn’t for you at all and that’s okay too. I know lots of people who
say, “been there, done that” and in less than a month they’ll have already stopped doing whatever they
said they were going to do, change, be or whatever the case may be.
So, what might the bible say about all this New Year resolution business. Well, just Google it and you’ll find
pages upon pages of scriptures that lead to so many different books of the bible and how it may be
relatable to our possible resolutions.
Many years ago, when I was teaching a youth Sunday School class, we studied Psalm 51 on the first Sunday
of the New Year with particular emphasis on verse 10 which says, “create in me a clean heart, O God, and
put a new and right spirit within me.” Each Sunday we read the scripture and discussed what the writer
was telling us and then we would discuss how we might apply that scripture within our daily lives. Each
week typically included some sort of craft too. That particular week, each person got a white ceramic
dinner plate to write down or draw a variety of things that they wanted to leave behind. Each person
thought seriously about what to place on their plates and then worked diligently on drawing and/or writing
on their plates. Upon completion, we placed each person’s plate in a pillowcase, and they smashed it with
a mallet. The kids particularly liked the smashing part! It illustrated that we cannot truly have a clean heart
if we carry all the old stuff with us. Then, each person was given another clean, white ceramic plate in
which to draw and/or write the things that they wanted to focus on in the new year.
What will you write and/or draw on your clean white ceramic plate for 2024?
Shalom,
Pastor Heidi