What Are Some Common New Year's Resolutions?

    Every year we pull them out -- you know "the list."  Those things we resolve to do or not to do anymore.  What are some common New Years Resolutions for the year?  They begin with the usual spending more time with the family and friends and enjoying life more.  We resolve to lose weight, exercise regularly, quit smoking and quit drinking.

    Where does our desire for New Year's resolutions come from? Sometimes some of the things that we have been doing have caused health issues and so we resolve to quit doing some things and start doing others.

    Perhaps our relationships have begun to falter.  So we resolve to make whatever changes are necessary to mend or save these relationships.

    My husband James and I began such a journey many years ago.  After years of resolutions and attempts to change things ourselves, our relationship, which began all wrong in the first place, was in shambles.  Our family was in total disarray.  

    I wish I could say we had a noble calling, but that would be inaccurate.  We were believers, attending church regularly, driving the church bus and teaching a class.  We were doing the best we knew how.

    Finally, separated, angry and bitter, we reached the end of ourselves and with no place to turn we had to cry out to God.  Well, He did put us back together, just the way we were.  However, as we began to look around at other believers, we saw that they were not any better off than we were.

    We made a startling discovery:  Christianity as we knew it did not work?  We prayed the most life changing prayer of our lives although we did not realize it at the time.  We said, "Lord, we want to know the TRUTH  of Your Word as You meant it when you inspired it to be written, and not what some man has said it means!"

    Our "New Year's Resolution""New Year's Resolution" may not have been at the beginning of the year, but with that declaration and prayer, we began a journey that has only intensified our resolve.

    We began to have a hunger for the Word of God and we literally has books and tapes show up at our home in the mail or on the front steps.  Some of them from people we have never met even to this day.

    

    God put people into our lives who began to speak truth to us from the Bible that we had never heard before.  We learned to study.  We invested everything we could afford in traveling to camp meetings, family and marriage seminars, deliverance and healing ministries.

    Little by little the pieces began to fit.  Years of religious bondage began to fall away.  Suddenly we had ears to hear and the more we heard the more wonderful the story grew.

    How great is our God and how patient and kind and how great is His plan for our lives.

    Where did we get off track?  I don't know the answer to that question except to say that from the very beginning that has been our tendency.  

    And that brings me to the reason for writing this blog.  Having trouble with your New Year's resolution?  Why not make it a radical one that can really change your life!

  

    Oh, and about that journey of our --- to be continued....

Happy New Year