[Faith-talk] Good Night Message for Thursday, January 3, 2013

[Paul]

Hello and good day once again.  Well, here in North America, the day is slowly coming to an end, and time to retire for the evening.  As this is being written, it's early in the morning for you Europeans and those who live in the UK, whereas you in Australia and New Zealand are hopefully enjoying a pleasant Friday afternoon.  Anyway, however your day is going or went, I hope that God had at least a small portion in your activities.

Peter Lundell wrote an interesting article entitled "Beyond New Year Resolutions," rendered as follows:

I often ask people how long their New Year's resolutions last.  Typically they seem to crash and burn sometime by the end of January.  So life goes on as it did before.

Positive change must be addressed every day.  It happens not by achievement but by habit.  I encourage people to chuck resolutions in favor of what I call "growth commitments" that I establish each year.  My growth commitment of last year (die to the dream of being a success, and live to the dream of being a blessing) has led to major changes in my life.

Think primarily in terms of personal character growth, not just paying off a credit card or losing weight.  Those are fine, but if you relate them to deeper issues of character growth, you'll go much deeper with the whole commitment and attain more overall results than you would otherwise.  Go ahead and have your other goals.  But if you keep the growth commitment to one main thing, simply expressed, you will do well.

Two keys make it work:  (1) Keep it simple and short, then write it on a small piece of paper (or PDA), and put it where you'll see it daily, like on a mirror, in a wallet, as a bookmark, or whatever works for you.  2.  Pray it, incorporate it into time you (hopefully) spend with God each day.  And do it all year long.  When you write it down and keep it where you always see it, you enable yourself to consistently pray it.

Doing this accomplishes two other things:  You bring God's response into it, and you reorient your own thinking around the commitment.  Change your thinking and you'll change your behavior especially if you seek God's blessing each day.

What would your New Year growth commitment be?

We had a discussion on this very same topic on my show on American Voice Radio this past New Year's Eve, and one of the callers brought out a very practical piece of advice from God's Word, when she quoted the phrase from the Book of James, and here I paraphrase:  "If it be the Lord's will, we will do this or that." And to me, that sounds better than making new year's resolutions.  I mean, we can write it down and put it where we can see it, but does that always mean that it will be carried out, even if we read it every day? I would think not necessarily.  We not only have to have a "growth commitment," as Peter wrote, but we must do what we resolve to do, with God's help of course.

And now may the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob just keep us safe, individually and collectively, throughout this night or day and especially in these last days in which we live.  Your Christian friend and brother, Paul