On New Year’s Day, we start with working towards our New Year’s resolutions. We set these goals in hopes of being healthier, more knowledgeable, more selfless, or whatever it is. Goals are good, but I have never been a fan of New Year’s resolutions.
Here’s why.
I don’t see myself changing in a day, and I feel like that is the expectation of New Year’s resolutions. “I am going to set a goal and look for instant gratification. If I don’t find it, I’m done.”
Naturally, I am not the best at following through. I am also a dreamer. I like to think about what things could be and the potential that something has. I can take one small detail and make a dream out of it. (sometimes that’s good, and sometimes that’s not so good…) Those two personality traits don’t really match well with New Year’s resolutions. It creates a situation where I want lots of big, big things, but they never get finished. So, instead of creating a situation where I’m bound for failure, I create situations that can be challenging, but simple.
My goal, every year, is to follow the Lord. That is simultaneously the most difficult and most simple thing in the world. The choice to follow the Lord is easy. The choice to do what the Lord tells me to do is the most difficult. It regularly means giving up the things that I want, letting go of preferences I have, and spending time thinking about hard things that I don’t want to deal with. In the end, I get to see the fruit of it, but in the moment, it sucks. A lot.
My goal to follow the Lord was tangibly set by my first act of 2018. I was at a church service to celebrate the New Year. I got there around 10:15 and we sang worship music in the local language and in English. We heard a sermon about how 2018 will be a year of harvest. We watched the team do a skit that portrayed Jesus’ unmatched sacrifice for us. We worshiped more. Then, our first act as a group after the New Year had come was communion.
Communion was an act that created a sense of focus, of sacrifice, and of thanksgiving.
My year will be a year that I give to the Lord. I will spend time reflecting on what Christ did for us. I will focus my time and effort on planting seeds that will grow the future me, and I will harvest what has been planted in the past. It will be a year where I see more of what God has for me, no matter how hard it becomes.
My year may involve exercising more or being more organized. It may involve healthy eating or journaling more. I just know that none of my goals can be realized fully or carried out if I don’t first focus on where God is leading me. His goals are far superior to mine, just like his ways of thinking, loving, and living. So, I will follow Him.
khills
