Recipe for a Happy New Year

On this eve of the New Year, a brand new year stretches ahead of us like a clean canvass just waiting for us to touch the brush to the palette, choose the colors, and splash on the paint. We make New Year's resolutions with great expectations, but because of past failures, we hesitate fearfully on the threshold of this New Year.

Sir Winston Churchill, prime minister of Great Britain during World War II and a man of many talents, became an accomplished artist. When he set out to paint, he chose oils as his medium so that whatever he painted would last for the ages.

Sir Winston Churchill relaxed by painting.
Courtesy Google.com

He asked his wife, Clementine, to purchase the materials he would need. When everything was assembled, the next step was to begin.

A prolific writer, he later described his feelings of looking at the white canvas in front of him. Beads of paint glistened on his new palette, and the empty brush in his hand was poised irresolute in the air. "My hand seemed arrested by a silent veto."

He knew that the sky should be at the top of the page, and sky was a pale blue. To achieve that color, he mixed a tiny bit of blue with white and cautiously made a mark the size of a pea on that intimidating snow-white canvas.

"It was a challenge, a deliberate challenge, but so subdued, so halting...that it deserved no response," he wrote.

At that moment, he heard an automobile in the driveway and out stepped his neighbor, a gifted painter. Clementine had called her.

She strode to the canvas and asked, "What are you hesitating about? Let me have a brush--a big one."

She splashed it into turpentine, swished it vigorously into the blue and white, and sprawled the paint across the canvas in huge, almost savage strokes.

Churchill wrote, "The spell was broken." Delighted, he knew he had discovered his style. This was how he lived. This was how he would paint. He became a fearless and gaudy painter, for he fell in love with the brilliant colors and felt sorry for the dull browns.

Let's approach this New Year with that same kind of fearless exhilaration, knowing that each day is the day that the Lord has made, so we can rejoice and be glad in it (Psalm 118:24).

Here's a recipe I found for a happy new year:

Take 12 whole months. Clean them thoroughly of all bitterness, hate, and jealousy. Make them just as fresh and clean as possible.

Cut each month into 28, 30, or 31 different parts, but don't make up the whole batch at once. Prepare it one day at a time with these ingredients:

Into each day mix well one part of faith, one part of patience, one part of courage, and one part of work. 

Add to each day one part of hope, faithfulness, generosity, and kindness. 

Blend with one part prayer, one part meditation, and one good deed. 

Season the whole with a dash of good spirit, a sprinkle of fun, a pinch of play, and a cupful of good humor.

Pour all of this into a vessel of love. Cook thoroughly over radiant joy, garnish with a smile, and serve with quietness, unselfishness, and cheerfulness.

If you follow these instructions carefully, you're bound to have a happy new year!

May I recommend some encouraging, faith-building reading for the new year?
Frontiers of Faith, Till the Storm Passes By, A Star to Steer By. Click on the titles to learn more about these books and how to order them.

Prescription for Peace Part 1

At the beginning of a new year, a clean canvas stretches out in front of us just waiting for us to pick up our paintbrush and add that first stroke of color. We are eager to start. We make New Year's resolutions.

Courtesy of Google.com

Yet, we hesitate to touch the brush to the paint. Which color do we use first? That vast white unknown seems daunting. Memories of all the failed attempts and past mistakes cause our hand to tremble. Fear of imagined future disasters (which, by the way, may never come) paralyze us.

We long for peace, but peace is elusive.

We can't read far into the Apostle Paul's writings (especially Romans 7) before we realize that he too struggled to find peace. "I am all too human," Paul lamented. "I want to do what is right, but I can't."

Then, in Philippians 4:6-9 (NLT), we find Paul's prescription for peace:

"Don't worry about anything. Instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me--everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you."

It's all in our thought life!

But thoughts seem to just pop up out of nowhere, don't they? Not really. Remember that old computer adage, "Garbage in, garbage out"? Jesus said that "whatever is in your heart [your thoughts] determines what you say" (Matthew 12:34) and do. When we feed our minds on the unholy, the unclean, and the perverted, our thoughts, words, and deeds will be evil too. So the first step in controlling our thoughts is to stop feeding on garbage. Instead, feast on things that are true, honorable, right, pure, lovely admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy.

What do we do when those evil thoughts from our past sinful life come to mind?

I've heard it said that "the birds can fly over your head, but you don't have to let them make a nest in your hair." Likewise, when peace-shattering thoughts come into our minds, we don't have to latch onto them and entertain them.

When I was a girl, I heard an advertising jingle for a particular brand of beer on the radio. It was a catchy tune. It sang itself over and over in my head. I couldn't seem to get free of it--until I began to quote a Scripture verse or sing a hymn. I soon realized that I couldn't think two things at the same time. I could replace unwanted thoughts with the Word of God or a spiritual song.

How can we control our thoughts? Through prayer and thanksgiving, by refusing to worry, by fixing our minds on God's Word and putting into practice what He says.

In my next blog posts, I will discuss three areas of our thought life that can rob us of peace:

• Guilt 
• Worry
• Fear