archives: january 2012

rethinking resolutions

by hannah gibney

As we kick off the New Year many of us will have made resolutions. I know I have. Eat less...exercise more...take up skydiving. Resolutions are hard to think up and even harder to keep up. Especially the ones that really matter.

Every single year, one of the resolutions that I try and make, is a pretty important one.

It’s the resolution that goes “I’m going to have that conversation with that friend”. (You know, that conversation, the one that starts... “I’m a Christian and I love Jesus and I want you to know how great He is....” Or words to that effect).

Wow. That can be a biggy. We all know how hard it can be.  Even the idea of it brings me out in a slight sweat as I wonder how I’m supposed to even start that conversation and I’m sure I’m not alone in that.

We always think that we need to have every answer, or be ready for every and any question....

But you know what, we forget that it’s not down to us really is it?

It’s remembering, as it says in Isaiah 55:11, that ‘As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth:  It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”

Alex, a fresher at Bath University, decided to run Student Alpha for his housemates in his kitchen during his fresher year. He says, “I remember sitting in my kitchen, thinking “none of them will come now”, kicking myself after sending a really soppy message, telling them how I ‘had to tell them about Jesus!’.

But by God’s grace, that first week, all but 1 of my 20 flatmates rocked up! And I mean agnostics, strong atheists; people who I never thought would ever be interested.

And from that week on, around 9 to 14 of would come along to discuss ‘The meaning of life’.