This Year will be Different

Happy New Year Everyone!!



So can you hear that noise? Thats the sound of New Years Resolutions being broken already! Isn't that the way it always seems to go? I know I have already broken a couple I've made to myself. The problem is I rely to much on myself and I am prone to mess up. We then feel unhappy with ourselves and with life. So how do we have happiness and contentment?

When it comes to any resolution and spiritual ones especially the only way we can follow through is by relying on our relationship with God. In life we do a great job of compartmentalizing things. We put on our at home self, our at work self, our at school self, our with these people or with those people self, our at church self. The problem is, we don't always act consistently in all the different compartments and arenas of our lives. We think we can be Godly only during quiet times and church times or with other Christian times but we forget that God is King and Sovereign over all of our life. Why not put God first during a soccer game? During work? Walking in the hallways at school? Driving on the interstate? We get so busy with filling up our lives with ultimately unimportant things that end up dictating how we feel and act. A car cuts us off, an opponent fouls you, a schoolmate mocks you, a boss mistreats you, you join classmates in cheating....whatever it is....we join the world of our moment rather than allow the God of eternity reign supreme in our everyday life. And what happens is we feel angst, we feel separated from something important. That separation is from God.

How about a New Years resolution this year to allow God to reign supreme in your everyday life. Throw up an arrow prayer during the middle of work, school, or play? Filter your everyday deeds, thoughts and environments through God. Talk to him like you talk to a friend throughout the day. Perhaps then you will have the right perspective on resolutions....for its only by following God first that all those other things fall into the right place. Be Resolved to Put God first in all things. That only comes through humbly asking him for his grace to achieve such end. And in doing so you will bring God glory! It wont be self-centered resolutions but God centered.

I think this resolution made by Jonathan Edwards is a good one to take on as one's own.

"Resolved, never to do any manner of thing, whether in soul or body, less or more, but what tends to the glory of God, nor be, nor suffer it, if I can possibly avoid it."