ON THE VANGUARD

RESOLUTIONS
“I call on heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have presented you with life and death, the blessing and the curse. Therefore, choose life, so that you will live, you and your descendants, loving Adonai your God, paying attention to what he says and clinging to him – for that is the purpose of your life! On this depends the length of time you will live in the land Adonai swore he would give to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
Deuteronomy 30:19-20

Like many people last night, I too stayed up till midnight to watch the replaying of the ball drop with Ryan Seacrest in Times Square. This is something I have been doing for years, but was the first time I had done it with my children still awake. Between my kids and one of my daughter’s friends who came over, the evening was filled with questions. The hardest part for them, however, was not the staying awake (thanks to the sugar I stock-piled in them), but the overall waiting. Having not been up purposefully till midnight before, the kids were anxious. So taking the delay we found ourselves in, I used it to my advantage to have each child write out three resolutions for the new year.
I do realize that a great majority of New Year’s resolutions are never kept, but in doing this activity it gave me time to look into their mindset. For children between the ages of seven and ten, resolutions included such things as doing better in math, becoming a better reader, and working to obey mom and dad the first time. Now think about that for a moment - working to obey parents the first time. This may be a resolution that we all could benefit from. Now granted we all face different home situations, be it we have moved out or maybe our parents have passed on, but regardless of our physical parents we still have a God. And, if memory serves me correctly, obeying God helps our life to last longer.
It is in the tail end of Deuteronomy 30 that we find this relationship between obeying God and living long. The choice of life and death was set before the people, with the urge to choose life. In choosing life, life would be granted to the descendants as well. But choosing life meant to choose and obey the ways of God. In choosing Him was included loving God, paying attention to what He said, and clinging to God. Failure to choose God’s ways and obey had a price tag of death as opposed to life.
So here we are, at the beginning of 2013 – the very first day. Before us today rests the choice of life or death for how this year will go. Which will you choose? Will you choose life and find a long and productive life this year? Or will you choose death and wonder months later why all that could go wrong did go wrong? While the year is so young, we have the chance to make a resolution. But, one other thing we must ponder is if we will keep this resolution. Both these choices are yours. What will your choice and final outcome be? What will you choose?