Today is Chinese New Year and this year marks the year of the monkey. Now I don’t follow the Chinese zodiac per se but the whole notion of celebrating a new year is a great opportunity for each of us to reflect on the past and dream about the future.

There is a saying that “hindsight is 20/20.” I’m not sure how true that is, but I know for most of us, there is a natural tendency to have regrets when looking back at our lives. We often wonder “what could have been.”

I recently read a quote that went like this: “No one can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” As I spent time pondering that statement, I came to the conclusion that we don’t start over; but we begin again right where we are, making things better in our lives.

As a believer in Christ, it is not about saying I will do this and I won’t do that and then dropping the idea or falling short. I hear stories about that every year after people make resolutions. As a follower of Christ, it is more about asking the Lord to help us each day to fall deeper and deeper in love with Him.

It is about getting our priorities right, our focus clear and moving in the right direction. It is about centering our lives in and around Jesus. Jesus put it this way in Matthew 6:33, “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be given you as well.”

If I were to make a New Year resolution today, it would be to have a deeper commitment, a deeper love, and a deeper worship for the Lord. I have gone through periods in my life where I have asked God, “Where are you?” When I felt this way, God would show up and speak to me, revealing more of His character and love to me in ways that increased my faith and passion for Him.

As we go into this New Year, I am determined to make Him my all and all. Will I succeed? It all depends… The truth is God wants our undivided attention in spite of the distractions and temptations that lie waiting around the corner. He has to be our main focus.

But I know for some of us, we think we’ve made such a mess of our lives, nothing can fix it. But the truth of the Bible is this: He makes “all things new.” He can take our pasts and heal us. He can take our present guilt and shame, and turn them into joy. He can take the fear we may have about the future and fill us with peace and hope.

I can remember watching a television show a few years ago called “Bad Ink.” It was about a tattoo artist who would take a person’s “mistake” (a bad tattoo) and transform it into something beautiful.

God can and does want to do that with each of our lives regardless of the start or the mess we may have made of it. The important thing to remember is to finish well. As Paul declared in 1 Timothy 4:7, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” May that be true for each of us moving forward into this new year.