When I was practicing law, one lawyer in my last law firm would always work on New Year's Day. Our firm, like most law firms, made money by billing clients for our time, and we logged our hours worked (in increments of one-tenth of an hour) each day. The logging of hours is also used to measure performance. The billable hour count becomes a yardstick against which everyone is measured and compared throughout the year.
In this type of climate, vacations become a source of stress because there are few, if any, hours billed on vacation. Weekends are often seen as an opportunity to catch up on billable hours, and holidays are a great gift because they provide a chance to really catch up. It is easy to be absorbed by this process of the billable hour – chasing after goals and milestones. The tracking period for many firms ends on December 31. This means that on January 1 (a holiday), everyone goes back to zero.
The zero, and the idea of still being at zero on January 2, was such a stress for my coworker, that he would always bill hours on New Year's Day. Now, I will confess that I did adopt his practice. The contagious nature of competition and fear overtook me. In fact, I even took to avoiding New Year’s Eve celebrations and instead going to bed even earlier than normal and getting up early on New Year’s Day to get a jump-start on the new billable year.
Our lives are filled with new beginnings. Each morning when we wake up to a new day, there is a new beginning – a new start, a new date, a new cycle of morning, midday and night. Each week and each month we do the same thing – we start anew. The marking of a new year seems, though, to be the most poignant new beginning and is often a time where we commit ourselves to picking up new practices, shedding other practices (or pounds) and generally embracing opportunity. Unfortunately, for many people, the newness fades and the new behaviors fade just as fast.
I wonder, though, if there's something we can learn from my coworker and his New Year’s Day practice when it comes to our faith life. Without committing to an ill-fated resolution that will likely fail, what would it look like for us to have an attitude geared toward starting our year, and possibly even each day, focused on drawing near to God?
While our faith doesn’t reset to zero every January 1, we are given new chances and opportunities to draw near to God, who invites us, each day, to experience God in new ways. Being receptive to God’s intermingling in our lives is our calling as Christians and is the beauty and wonder that we celebrated at Christmas when God became present with us in the form of Jesus – Immanuel: God with us. Just as the shepherds and magi were guided and drawn to bow before Jesus, we, too, have this opportunity to live into our calling and approach the mysterious presence of God.
What might it look like for you to set apart some time in the next few days, and especially as we head into this week to get a jump-start on 2024 by doing something to draw you closer to God. Pray for the new year and that your journey of faith will be filled with God's presence and love. Pray for those who are close to you, and consider letting them know that you have prayed for them. End this year with a focus on how you’ll live into next year.
