Leave it to a comic strip to say in one sentence what the rest of us take a whole year to learn. In the Family Circus, big sister wisely tells little brother, “God invented time to keep everything from happening at once.” I laughed—and then I felt the realization of how true it is.

Not long ago I told a friend, “I feel like I’m constantly chasing time.” Maybe you’ve felt that too: running from one deadline to the next, measuring your worth in productivity, trying to squeeze one more good decision into an already packed day. And what makes it even more complicated is that our lives come with multiple “new years.” There’s the school year that restarts in August, the church year that begins again with Advent, and then the January 1st New Year with its confetti and countdowns. Each beginning is an invitation to notice, to take stock, to get ready for something.

But secular New Year messages often carry a familiar pressure: fix yourself. Optimize everything. Eat perfectly, exercise consistently, sleep enough, read more, scroll less, become the upgraded version of you. And yet, as the jokes and statistics remind us, most resolutions don’t last—only about 9% of people stick with them after a month. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t pursue healthy habits. It might mean we’re aiming at the wrong center.

January 1st doesn’t land in a spiritual vacuum. It drops right into Christmastide—the season that keeps announcing God has come near. Christ came for us: to show us how to live and love, how to value people, how to receive grace, and how to remember that our lives are caught up in God’s goodness.

So what if we decide the New Year isn’t about self-improvement, but about re-orientation? The work of Christmas is abiding in Christ—an attention of the heart, a steady return to Presence. That’s a resolution I can get behind: not chasing time, but living it—held, guided, and loved.

Rev. Lee Ritchie