"In the new year everything will be different, I will leave my bad habits!" Did you also make resolutions of that type, using the change of year as a date for a disruption in your life?
Every year, many people make radical resolutions for their lives. The change of year is accompanied by a certain aura of transformation, leading us to believe that on that date it will be easier to break with bad habits and overcome weaknesses of character.
What is left over from all these good purposes? What remains of the decisions made on apparently significant dates? Maybe some remember that a specific day many weddings were held in different parts of the world. And now certainly the first of these marriages are already undone. Broken harmony and unfulfilled promises of fidelity led to failure.
Peter once said that his Master:
"Even if I have to die with you, it is in no way to deny" (Mt 26,35) - but it failed shamefully. Does not that disciple's behavior reflect our own futile purposes? Do not we fail repeatedly? Paul writes: "I do not do the good that I want, but the evil that would do it, I do that" (Romans 7:19). Many of us seek to excuse and minimize their faults, saying: "Paul was also like this ..." But he, in that passage, seeks only to demonstrate the struggle between good and evil within each one of us. In other passages it is very clear that he was determined to live a victorious life with all his strength. Paul continued towards the goal, towards Christ: "... I press on to the target ..." (Fp 3.14).
In Daniel's case, the key to his victorious life was very well defined. He also reached the point where the decision was made: "And Daniel proposed in his heart not to defile himself with the king's food, nor with the wine that he drank" (Daniel 1,8). Daniel got his resolution in practice because, even under threat of death in any circumstance, he stopped praying three times a day to his God, "three times a day, he got on his knees and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he used to do "(Dn 6.10b). This habit was something natural to him. But it is precisely at that point that all our good purposes fail. We are willing, we have the firm intention to put aside bad habits and old defects.
We say to ourselves: "As of January 1, it will be to be worth!" But we fail shamefully once more if we only leave the bad habits aside, without having become accustomed to lead a truly God-oriented life.
How is our relationship with God? Has it become a habit for us to read His Word, pray and serve Him? About Jesus it is written: "And he went out, went, as usual, to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed him. When he arrived at the chosen place, Jesus said to them: Pray that you do not enter into temptation." (Luke 22:39 -40) It is in this sense that I wish everyone a very blessed year, a year in which our habits and customs bring us closer to our Lord and Master.
"Pray, lest you enter into temptation!"
