New Year's Resolutions

Aaaaah, the New Year.  I don’t know about you but I always seem to have mixed feelings about the new year?  

 

Because it is the UNKNOWN!  For a control freak like me who likes to have everything clean and simple the UKNOWN is a scary place to be.

I wonder, what will this New Year bring?  What joys?  What sorrows?  What losses?  What gains?  How strong will my faith be in 2012?  Where will my family be?  And on and on the questions go . . .

On the one hand it’s exciting to look at a fresh clean year and wonder what it will hold but on the other hand it’s scary to think about what might happen and how my world will change.

I also have mixed feelings about New Year’s resolutions.  I have this love/hate relationship with them.  I love New Year resolutions because I can start all over again.  The slate is wiped clean and I can begin to conquer some areas in my life that I have wanted to change for a long time. It doesn’t matter that I didn’t make it last year, what matters now is that a New Year is stretching out before me with new possibilities and new challenges.

On the other hand I hate New Year’s resolutions.  Every time I think about something I want to do there’s this little voice inside my head that whispers, “You won’t stick with it, you’re just going to fail so why even try?”  And then I’m reminded of all the things I’ve tried and failed.  For years I determined to read through the Bible in a year.  I would get through the book of Genesis and somehow that’s as far as I would get.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read Genesis!

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/233770

Fear causes us to hold back and play it safe. 

In 1 Timothy 1:7 (Amplified Version) it says, “For God did not give us a spirit of timidity (of cowardice, of craven and cringing and fawning fear), but [He has given us a spirit] of power and of love and of calm and well-balanced mind and discipline and self-control." 

So this year – I’m not holding back, I refuse to play it safe.  I’m making a list and trusting in God’s power to enable me to keep them.  And if I fail - it won’t be the end of the world.  I’ll pick myself up, wipe the dust off and try again with God by my side.

What about you?  Do you have some resolutions you need to make but have been holding back because of the fear of failure?  Step out in faith, place your hand in your Heavenly Father’s hand and draw your strength from His Power.

Mark Batterson in his book In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day says this:  “Faith is embracing the uncertainties of life! . . .       Embrace relational uncertainty.  It’s called romance.  Embrace spiritual uncertainty.  It’s called mystery.  Embrace occupational uncertainty.  It’s called destiny.  Embrace emotional uncertainty.  It’s called joy.  Embrace intellectual uncertainty.  It’s call revelation.” 

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.  So throw off the bowlines.  Sail away from the safe harbor.  Catch the trade winds in your sails.  Explore. Dream. Discover.    –Mark Twain