Relinquish.

So, a new year is upon us. Symbolic if you want to make it that. I know I used to make new year resolutions. I also know a weakness of mine is idealising things. I would treat a new year in the same way as a clean sheet of paper, or a blank canvas, waiting for me to make my new, clean and perfect mark. Blemish free like untouched snow. But if I made a wrong stroke early on, if I smudged my writing, that'd be it. Ruined. Then I began to grasp that there's a God that's outside of time, who doesn't particularly care if its the first of January or twelfth of August. So I don't make new year's resolutions anymore. The disappointment of spoiling my clean sheet was so heavy, and in my mind condemned the whole year to substandard living and unreached goals. Now, I make resolutions every day. I fail every day too. Multiple times! But almighty incredible and fabulously prodigal grace and unwavering patience and an eternal supply of undeserved clean sheets erase my mistakes and let me start afresh every ten minutes when I need to. And I need to!

Nevertheless, it just so happens that I've been praying into and thinking about some stuff the past couple of weeks and those stumbling steps have reached the uneven ground of resolve around about today. So I should impress, this is not new year resolve. This is new day, new life resolve. It is time to move on! Damo and I commented that we've done a lot this year passed. Things have certainly changed a lot. Crazy amounts really. But it's time to go with it. Take the lessons, leave the burdens, abandon the vices and the ties to those things that pull you down. Loosen the cords. Step out. I'll be quite honest- I have no idea how to do this, but I know I've got to try.

"Awake, awake, O Zion,
clothe yourself with strength.
Put on your garments of splendour,
O Jerusalem, the holy city.
The uncircumcised and defiled
will not enter you again.
Shake off your dust;
rise up, sit enthroned, O Jerusalem.
Free yourself from the chains on your neck,
O captive Daughter of Zion."
~ isaiah 52:1-2.

"Why do we keep what holds us? Why do I keep what holds me down?
Lose the weight of defeat. It's time to stand your ground!
Vices like vipers
Speak in whispers.
My heel's the meat to sink their teeth,
Like the viper
I kept when You said, "Let go!"
Since all the alibis of ignorance are void...
This, my lust, the pornos and the sluts.
Take, my lust, this world's Love.
Great Councilor, take what's left.
Great Councilor, take what's left of me"
~ Oh, Sleeper. Vices like Vipers