New Years Resolutions

I guess I should start the New Year by praising God for another year spent with friends, family, and school (20 years of education and still not done!). I also thank God for the blessings he’s provided in the form of a place to live, financial security, health, etc.

Since New Year’s is the time of making resolutions, I thought I would also take stock of where I’m at and lay out goals for 2007. I’m hesitant to make resolutions that are too ambitious, but I think it’s a better idea to aim high and wish for the best while at the same time planning and safeguarding against the worst. So if resolving could make it so, here is what I hope I will be like in 2007: A driven, disciplined person who wakes up early, plans and works ahead, achieves a good balance between work and play, engages in social interactions that build people up, exercises on a disciplined schedule, eats healthy food, budgets wisely and manages finances well, works in everything as doing it unto the Lord, pursues excellence at work, is devoted to God in such a way that my actions and speech draw others toward Christ, champions the cause of social justice, and devotes energies to improving the quality of life for the poor and marginalized at home and abroad.

However, here is what I know I’m like: A person that is chiefly self-interested, a sinner pursuing my own desires and gratification above service to God and others, a person who is at times lazy, often procrastinates and does just what is expected or required, and just in time, not exceeding expectations or living up to God-given potential.

I therefore take comfort in the words of the Apostle Paul:

“ 16Now if I do [habitually] what is contrary to my desire, [that means that] I acknowledge and agree that the Law is good (morally excellent) and that I take sides with it.
17However, it is no longer I who do the deed, but the sin [principle] which is at home in me and has possession of me.
18For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot perform it. [I have the intention and urge to do what is right, but no power to carry it out.]
19For I fail to practice the good deeds I desire to do, but the evil deeds that I do not desire to do are what I am [ever] doing.
20Now if I do what I do not desire to do, it is no longer I doing it [it is not myself that acts], but the sin [principle] which dwells within me [[c]fixed and operating in my soul].
21So I find it to be a law (rule of action of my being) that when I want to do what is right and good, evil is ever present with me and I am subject to its insistent demands.
22For I endorse and delight in the Law of God in my inmost self [with my new nature].(D)
23But I discern in my bodily members [[d]in the sensitive appetites and wills of the flesh] a different law (rule of action) at war against the law of my mind (my reason) and making me a prisoner to the law of sin that dwells in my bodily organs [[e]in the sensitive appetites and wills of the flesh].
24O unhappy and pitiable and wretched man that I am! Who will release and deliver me from [the shackles of] this body of death?
25O thank God! [He will!] through Jesus Christ (the Anointed One) our Lord! So then indeed I, of myself with the mind and heart, serve the Law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. “ (Romans 7:16-25, Amplified Bible translation, The Lockman Foundation)

So while resolutions may fail, God is faithful. Indeed “[we] can do all things through Christ who strengthens [us]”. Best wishes for 2007 and may God give you the strength to do the things he has put you here to do!