New Year and new resolutions; do we follow them?

A question that may confront each of us as we profess to change our way of thinking to make us better. However, too many people with good intentions usually fail to keep their promise to themselves. It isn’t a bad or devastating event that never completes its ideal. We all want to improve in some manner the lives that we've inherited and reach into our mind controlling the very way we live for the betterment of everyday advancement.

The same scenario can be experienced with sin that we find becoming a weight on our soul although we may not identify this spiritual calamity as a soul in trouble. Sin, we discover, is a turning away from God and therefore needs a path to erase this human error and return to God’s grace on a daily basis. Resolutions for New Years are a reminder that we need to make decisions to become better for ourselves and others whom we may affect without change. But sin is a whole different aspect when it sets up a rampart before us making the charge of attack on evils that we are always fighting to find our way back to God’s grace.

Saints have always found that returning to God’s grace through suffering is a distasteful but probable entity that allows the servant to see beyond the pain or disillusionment that it hands us. Think for just a moment of some past characters on the human scene that in fact accepted suffering as a way to save their own belief, and in the case of some the complete eradication of others as well. St. Joan of Arc suffered by being burned at the stake for her beliefs and showed many the need to stand your ground even when one answer to the bishops would have saved her life, but not her soul. St. Thomas More could also have bowed to the king's marriage which went the wrong way. He didn’t and lost his head for what he believed was morally correct. Then, one very important event happened when Jesus was told to come down off the cross and then they would believe. His final step to redeem you and me was to do his Father’s bidding and suffer to his death guaranteeing our salvation by forgiving our sins.

Sts Joan of Arc and Thomas More had to make a resolution that changed history with the choice of not turning back to save their immortal bodies. Christ also made a resolution by taking on humanity that would ultimately, through intense suffering, throughout the 3.5 years he also changed the direction of all people if they accepted his resolution to suffer for his children.

Perhaps your decision to change by resolving past sins and the attraction to forget these resolute thoughts may be an opportunity to change the world spiritually for more than yourself. Joan of Arc, Thomas More, and even Jesus went to their deaths without knowing who they would save by their actions. Although Jesus knew who would accept his suffering, he also knew that without his grace many would turn away.

What is your resolution that may affect even one person besides yourself that is grace upon you and those you may save.

Ralph B. Hathaway