Have a Terrible New Year

Yesterday was New Years Day. It was not a typical New Years for our family, we spent 13 hours in our car driving on New Years Eve, so the only thing we watched drop when we got home was ourselves into bed. And since New Years was a Sunday, we didn’t spend the day loafing around like we might normally, but instead we went to church (which, by the way, was an excellent way to start the year. I thought it was a fantastic service, and God really spoke to me through our Sunday School lesson, the worship, and the message… but I digress).

The one tradition that we were able to continue was a food tradition, which I would argue are the best kind. We ate cabbage and black eyed peas, which are supposed to help you to have a happy and prosperous New Year. I believe the symbolism is cabbage for money and black eyed peas for mad hip-hop beats in 2012.

But this got me thinking. Is a happy and prosperous New Year what God really wants for me? I look at the lives of the disciples. All but one of them was executed for their faith, and that’s because the last one was exiled. Paul was beaten and left for dead, shipwrecked, and imprisoned because of what he believed. Jesus said of the Christian faith that one must approach it like a builder, counting the cost before beginning to build. He says this because there is a cost to truly following Christ, and if we are not willing to pay that cost than we are not worthy to call ourselves His disciples.

Is it too bold to ask God for a terrible New Year in the hopes that as we lose all we have we will gain the eternal blessings that can only come from a life given completely over to the will of God?