By now your inbox has been flooded with offers guaranteed to help you lose or gain. The Christmas Crush experienced by UPS drivers serves only to strengthen them to deliver all the home gym / fitness equipment in January. Strength they will need when most of the consumers discover the reality of results gained in only six weeks. “You mean I don’t look like the guy in the television commercial yet?” “Honey, You’ve been flexing those bows for 6 weeks and you look nothing like that chic on TV!” Which one of you bums said that?
The ability to start over again is an element of a new year that I find refreshing. I think it fitting to set goals for a new year. I just think most of the time we under estimate what will be required of us to accomplish the lofty goals we’ve set. If you need to lose weight, have an achievable plan to lose weight. If you need to quit smoking, have an achievable plan to quit smoking. If you need to grow hair, too bad you’re out of luck. Make your goals, set your course and stick to it. In your effort to improve physically, however, don’t crowd out the gains you can achieve spiritually.
You don’t have to learn Greek or Hebrew this year. You don’t have to journey to the holy land on your knees. You could take an attribute or character quality of Christ and work on a specific one each month. The time frame is not really the point. The effort to act like Christ in some area of your life is the point. Will you work on kindness? Mercy? Patience? Holiness? A Commitment to Prayer? Choose one and get going. Try to be kind and merciful and patience in your dealings with others and who knows at the end of six weeks you may start looking like Jesus.
7 Responses to “113629799397754464”
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January 3rd, 2006 at 9:38 am
So what you are saying is if I am kind, merciful and patient I will grow hair? Hmmmm. Looks like I am going to be bald a long, long time.
January 3rd, 2006 at 9:52 am
Thanks for the encourgement to make a difference this year.
Hopefully I’ll look like Jesus with a bald spot this year.
January 3rd, 2006 at 11:19 am
Great post…very encouraging.
January 3rd, 2006 at 11:45 am
I’m losing enough hair that somebody should be able to use it to refresh their own.
Good post. Mine is weight. Jan and I are going for -30 pounds before Josh’s wedding. Hold me accountable … except for Pepperdine week.
January 3rd, 2006 at 1:59 pm
Yes, the annual run to Krispy Kreme must be an exception. Hopefully my sfwlork levels will be low by then.
January 4th, 2006 at 5:38 am
You’re right about “underestimating” what is required for change. Change costs.
January 4th, 2006 at 8:46 am
Wonderful thoughts, Randy. I’d love to look more like Jesus this year. My resolutions are always the same: control my weight, become financially stable, etc. I needed to be reminded that there are loftier goals.
However, if anyone out there needs to quit smoking, let me recommend Nicoderm CQ. Go to a doctor first, and then do the patches for the whole period of time recommended. I’ve never smoke (except for a few months at a young age; never got hooked, thankfully, and that was more than 30 years ago), but Doris smoked practically from childhood up to about 7 or 8 years ago. I thought she’d never quit. But she did, with the patches. After the first 3 days, it appeared to be the easiest thing she ever did. And now, this many years later, she never wants a cigarette. As an aside to this, as some of you know, she was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. She had a very traumatic surgery and recovery time (which isn’t really over, yet), but she and the doctors are convinced she would not have made it had she not quit smoking a few years before.