Thursday, January 9, 2014





NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS



I was reading my daily devotion from  Our Daily Bread for January, and was struck by the fact that I have never made a New Year's resolution. Not one. It always occurred to me that if I needed to be doing something to improve myself, than I shouldn't be waiting until January 1st to be doing it. Nike's, Just Do It, campaign always made sense to me, probably because of my type A just "get 'er done" attitude. But then again, why not set a goal for the year that is just beginning. There couldn't be a better time. So, this morning, as I was reading January 3rd from ODB, the writer suggested instead of choosing our own self-improvement goals, it might be better to ask ourselves, "What does the Lord desire of me?"  You know, soul-improvement verses self-improvement. In the end, if you go for the one, you will win the crown for the other. Certainly anything the Lord would ask us to improve upon would be worthy. And, thankfully as Christians, we have the Holy Spirit to guide us and give us the capacity to make it happen. We don't have to rely on our own strength. This is helpful since, I would surmise, most resolutions never get carried through to the next new year. If we use Christian principles then we are far more likely to achieve our goals then if we try and go it on our own. We also need to be sensible and pragmatic about our expectations. Telling yourself your going to win a marathon verses simply competing in one is probably unrealistic. We also need to remember the simple truth that every resolution depends on God to see us through it. So, this year resolve to make a realistic New Year's resolution and allow your Holy Spirit to nudge you in the direction the Lord has planned for you, then hopefully by this time next year you will be able to say, "I succeeded," I won the race and received a winners crown that will last forever.






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