A Theme For The New Year

As I searched through my Dad's sermons for material for a New Year-themed post, I stumbled upon an outline from a talk he gave for a secular community group around New Year's Day of 1989. I was startled when I realized the timing of this message. Dad had lost a kidney to cancer just months earlier, but he didn't know that his cancer would re-emerge and take his life in the year ahead. 

Here's the heart of Dad's New Year's talk, which I've re-created for you from his notes ...

Did you make a New Year's resolution this year? I didn't make one. I'm not a big fan of New Year's resolutions, mostly because of the trouble I inevitably have keeping them. In fact, I recommend that you choose a theme for the New Year instead of a resolution.

I've asked a few friends what their themes for this new year might be. One suggested "Fun and Frolic." Another came up with "Limber and Trimmer." Here's my suggestion: "Nothing Wasted."

Why "Nothing Wasted"? you may ask. One of the most debilitating fears that attacks us is the fear of failure. We can't imagine anything worse. Inherent in that fear is the feeling that when something doesn't go the way we planned, when we lose, when tragedy strikes -- that this is all wasted time and effort. There is no good to come out of it.  Everything has gone "down the tubes."

So many of our choices in life are based upon "not failing" rather than "trying it." We make safe choices which do not challenge, stretch and test our abilities. Sometimes, this fear of failure causes us to get stuck in familiar ruts. We don't do jobs we could do, we don't get to know people we could get to know, we don't go places we could go -- all because we are afraid to fail and we look at failure as a waste. So we stay right where we are. Prisoners of our own fears. Stuck in the status quo.      

There is another way. We can risk failure if we can put our trust in God -- the ultimate safety net.

I believe I can talk about God here. I think it's safe to assume that community-minded people such as yourselves are here because of a responsibility you feel -- dare I say a spiritual responsibility -- to make your community a better place in which to live. And so, I'm going to talk about God.

God is always there to catch us when we fall. Not if we fall. When we fall. Failure is inevitable; it is how we view it that counts. When we realize this, nothing in life is wasted.

I think of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German-Lutheran pastor and professor who was jailed by the Nazis during World War II. Under similar circumstances, many of us would be done in. What a waste! Right? No! From his prison cell, Bonhoeffer wrote: "Much as I long to be out of here, I don't believe a single day has been wasted. What will come out of my time here, it is too early to say. But something is bound to come out of it."

I was in the hospital for major surgery this past October. What a blow! What a waste! That's how I was tempted to feel. But I also felt God's hand. Odd as this may sound, I can't begin to tell you the good that has come out of it: mental and spiritual health, confirmation of my faith, love and support of family and friends, greater sensitivity as I minister to the sick, an ability to take life one day at a time, to prioritize and attend to the important things first.

I am learning that nothing that happens to you need be considered a waste. "Nothing wasted" -- I recommend it as your theme for 1989.     

Notes from: "A Theme For The New Year"

Presented on or about January 1, 1989

to a community group in Paoli, PA