It's New Years Eve and I'm full of empty promises, I half pretend to keep this time, just like last year.
That lyric is from a song that I always listen to this time of year, as I think about the changing of the years. Somehow, we seem to think that with the changing of the years, somehow one day is more different than the last. We take the opportunity to make "New Year's Resolutions," most of which are broken by the end of January. This song, "New Year's Eve" by Five Iron Frenzy, captures this moment.
And then with thunderous praise and lofty adoration, a second passes by, yet nothing changes.
How often do we sit and expect for things to change around us? How often do we think that the changing of the circumstances around us will make things magically better? Somehow, a new calendar embodies this hope for us - that somehow, someway, things are going to get better. We also go to the other extreme and work really hard to change things, making resolutions, ultimatums, and making plans for discipline. Somehow, our efforts always seem to fall short.
This New Years Eve, something must change me inside, I'm crooked and misguided, and tired of being tired.
Somehow, this song seems to capture something within me, and my soul resonates: "Yes! That's me!" It's a reminder that we can't do it on our own, we are lost. On our own, we're hopeless, because as Immanuel Kant wrote, "Out of timber so crooked as that from which man is made nothing entirely straight can be built." We need something outside ourselves to change us and make us new. Circumstances won't change us, and neither will our hard work. Only Jesus can change us.
A year goes by and I'm staring at my watch again, and I dig deep this time, for something greater than I've ever been, life to ancient wineskins. And I was blind but now I see.