New Year’s Resolutions

New Year, new challenges!

Once again, we have a New Year where so many of us make resolutions. With just a few days into the New Year, have you broken any of your resolutions yet? Some popular traditional resolutions include the following: Lose weight, quit smoking, save money, get out of debt, or drink less alcohol.

It seems that most resolutions involve dropping bad habits and vices, while hoping to start new and hopefully healthier habits that last forever.

New wholesome habits can be adopted and integrated into our lives if we truly are committed to setting and reaching goals.

Some ways to insure a higher chance of success in keeping resolutions can include putting our goals on a daily planner, and asking ourselves each night after our day is finished if we have taken any step that day towards accomplishing those goals.

It is best not to set too many goals, since it is unrealistic that we can accomplish so much.

In the New Testament, the writer St. Paul sent a letter to the Philippians, wherein he wrote, “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus,” (Philippians 3:14).

Paul’s goal was a spiritual one. He had in mind that Christ was his very prize and calling. Life can be best understood as a spiritual journey to know our Creator in a real and intimate way.

We may achieve our goals, or fail miserably with our resolutions. By February, those lofty New Year’s resolutions are already but a distant memory. However, if we fail to make the spiritual goal of knowing the high calling of God, we have failed the ultimate resolution of deepening our relationship with God Himself.

I encourage all of you who read this monthly column from each of us local pastors to visit a church where you can get help to reach that goal of attaining that “high calling of God in Christ Jesus” yourself. You will be so glad that you did.