The New Year changes to another year. There is excitement to leave the old year and its trials behind. And there is the possibility of making changes to have a ‘happy’ new year. But happiness is not all there is. Life is more about being content and having the peace of God in our lives.
Every year after Christmas, the advertisements for losing weight get more frequent. Or for people to join a fitness club to get in shape. The desire to be thinner or in shape is two of the three top New Year’s resolutions. These resolutions tend to wane in mid-February. The other resolution coming in at number one is to save more money.
New Year Changes: Definitions & Emphasis in the Bible
Happy is defined as “a feeling or showing pleasure or contentment. It is also being delighted, pleased, or glad, over a particular thing.” (dictionary dot com)
In the Bible, there are only eight verses about being happy and they are all in the Old Testament. In a nutshell, they are about Leah being happy for having a child, whom she named Asher, which is the Hebrew word for happy (Gen 30:13), a law for a newly married man to stay home from war (Deut 24:5), Israel’s safety (Deut 33:29), Solomon’s wisdom and wealth (four verses), and those who can sow their fields by water where the ox/donkey can roam freely (Isaiah 32:20). Wealth or money is in common with our of three today.
There are more verses about the Biblical concepts that we talk about on this podcast: contentment, satisfaction, and peace. Contentment has 14 verses, satisfy has 17, and satisfied has 47. Peace, which we focused on in the last two episodes, Peace is a Choice and Peace at Christmas in Hard Times, has 361 verses. God is interested in us being content and having peace!
Happiness vs. Contentment: What’s the difference?
So why the desperate amount of verses on happiness vs. contentment? Because I believe that happiness is a temporary feeling, based on the moment or a circumstance. Now, other instances of the Bible refer to happiness as blessed or to bless and even joy. In Greek, the word for happy is ‘eudaimonia’ and means “the state or condition of good spirit.”
However, contentment is a state of mind. It is how you live out your life each day, rather than being happy at a specific time.
So how can you stay in a contented state of mind instead of relying on the feeling of being happy? This can be found by focusing on change and growth in the areas that we have been talking about in Season One: God’s Will, prayer, Bible study, Holy Spirit, and attributes of thankfulness and peace. There are many more qualities to come throughout this year, so stay tuned!
New Year Changes: Why Seeking Change is Important
As we approach the end of the year, you will hear multiple people, and commentators, talk about what happened in the last year and what you learned from it. And then this new year is about implementing changes to have a better year.
When searching for the word change in the Bible, there are many verses about a person changing their clothes or bringing several changes of clothing. It is rarely referred to in the context of making changes to one’s life. Those changes in one’s life are spoken about in comparison of one type of life to another.
In 2 Corinthians 5:17, we read:
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
2 Corinthians 5:17
A person who has accepted Christ as their Savior has transferred their life from an old life to a new life.
This is explained more in-depth in Colossians 3:5-14. Paul says that we should put to death the old life and he lists different sins: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. These are the old life and part of the darkness in this world.
Instead, we are to put on a new life that contains holiness, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another, forgiving, and loving others. These are the qualities of a person who has changed their life from an old way of living to a new way of living.
These are the qualities that we should strive for.
New Year Growth: Why Growth is Important
To implement change in our lives and become a more righteous person, we need to have a growth mindset.
When we have a growth mindset as Christians, we need to read God’s Word every day so we can grow in our relationship with God. Peter says:
Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation.
1 Peter 2:2
We should long for or desire more of God’s Word. It is like that craving for some food that can’t wait to have. I love chocolate! So I desire peanut M&M’s, chocolate syrup on my vanilla ice cream, or chocolate chip cookies. Do I long for God’s Word in that same way? Most days, I do. I want to spend time with the Lord. And whatever the verse or scripture there is to read, I am contented with it, as long it means I get the time with the Lord. Recently, I have been reading the book of Luke and now I am back to Acts in preparation for Bible study.
Benefits of Spiritual Growth
The benefit of spiritual growth is flourishing. In Psalm 92:2, the Psalmist tells us that the righteous flourish like tall trees. That verse is:
The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
Psalm 92:12
Flourish or ‘parah’ in Hebrew means “to bud, sprout, shoot, or bloom.” So we will grow! And that growth includes blooms, which is a sign of new life as we see in the Spring.
He specifically talks about palm trees and cedar trees in Lebanon. So what is it about these two trees that is significant? The average palm tree is 32-50 feet tall. However, some species of palm trees can grow up to 200 feet (30a dot com). The cedar tree can grow up to 120 feet tall. And they are known for longevity and resistance to decay (udayton dot edu). With that thought about their longevity, I was curious how old the cedar trees are in Lebanon. The oldest cedar tree in Lebanon is about 3000 years old (kaleela dot com).
How do other trees compare in height?
In hearing these heights of trees, I wondered how they compared to the Evergreen and Ash trees that we had to cut down in our yard a couple of years ago. (Don’t worry – we had to cut them down for good reasons). Evergreen trees can grow from 20 to 60 feet tall (fast-growing-trees dot com). Ash trees can grow to an average height of 35 to 75 feet high (dnr.state.mn dot us.)
The palm and cedar trees can grow to tall heights. Even taller than the ash or evergreen trees that we had to cut down. And I thought those trees were tall! Whatever it is that God has for us to achieve, it is amazingly more than we can imagine! Even comparing us to the growth of these tall Palm and Cedar trees!
Spiritual Goals?
Do you have a spiritual change component to your New Year’s goals this year? Every year, I have one word and verse that I want to achieve. My word for this year is “trust.” My trust verse for the year is:
I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”
Psalm 91:2
I was listening to a podcast about choosing one word for the year. Jimmy Page was on the show explaining about having a God word for you to focus on for the year. Once you have decided on a word, then look at it through all areas of your life: spiritual, physical, social, mental, emotional, relational, and financial. Now that I heard this, I need to sit down and write out how my one word can impact all these areas of my life.
Besides the one word, I do have other goals for the ministry, our home finances, and even memorizing scripture verses this year. I have some memorized but I need to be intentional about memorizing scripture. When you are struggling with something, it is helpful to have scripture to rely upon. And it can help cheer others up too.
If you didn’t add a spiritual goal this year, consider adding it now. It isn’t too late. There are fifty more weeks to get it done. 😉
We all desire to have meaning in this life and purpose for what we do. That purpose brings us contentment. Maybe this year you want to delight in God’s plans for you. Check out that linked post about delighting in God’s plans and put some of the ideas into practice this year.
