My New Year’s Resolutions, Perspective and Prayer

I made a sarcastic post a couple days ago and being a believer of resolutions, I thought I should offer a more honest one.

Like all good people, I want to be a better husband, dad, son, brother, son-in-law, brother-in-law, uncle, friend, pastor and Jersey driver.

Indeed I want to pray more, read more Scripture, read more on youth ministry, church work, theology, various Christian genres and may even read a novel this year (like the Marcus Borg one, not the Twilight one). I want to think more logically, allow for more mystery and have grow to have a child-like heart that is amazed at the work of God.

Like all people, I want to be more productive, better organized, improve correspondence between close friends and distant ones.

These are all broad and but hardly measurable so here are a few of my specific new resolutions.  Feel free to share your own.

In honesty, I will be committing to Devotional Reading this year. I am not interested in actually completing a devotional but more of the practice of reading them. In my opinion, certain devotionals get repetitious after a while (like My Utmost for His Highest – which I used to read as if it were a fifth gospel). Over the years, I have acquired roughly 800 devotionals so I cannot blame my lack of options for any failure.

Spend MORE TIME on Facebook and be more intentional about social media. Undoubtedly, our youth ministry has only been served by connecting on mediums like Facebook and Twitter. Initially I thought of creating a number of people that I should connect with per week but I felt that was too objectifying and thought it was counter-productive to consider someone part of my “5” or “25”. So, although I want something measurable, it seems there are other ways to measure something than by using numbers. We’ll see.

Work on the Theology Pub Gathering. I have been talking about this for too long …

Back to some more sarcastic ones so I don’t lose my cred.
I need to drink more coffee so I can stay on top of all of this and need to get more rest. I want to eat better, exercise, and consume products and services more consciously.
Go to more Yankees games.
Take out a second mortgage on my church-given parsonage so I can afford the parking.
Watch more Fox News – Who is this Bob O’Reilly, Glenn Heck, and John Hannity that all these old people are talking about?

And back to a semblance of a conclusion.
There are a few others that I have not mentioned but they either sound vain or awkward when posted online but the Lord knows my heart.  I do enjoy making resolutions because as I mentioned before, we ought to never forfeit an opportunity to better our lives. But one of the blessings of the week was the realization that though not perfect, we enjoyed so much of 2010. Certainly, there were moments and trials that I would have preferred to have gone without (and I realize you can enjoy the goodness of something when you remember the pain of certain times and the character and perseverance that is gained in trials) but it all in all, it was a great year.

In many ways, I hope this year is similar to last but my prayer is to become a more faithful person in what God has called me to be and to do – Amen. May you be blessed with grace and strength in 2011.

Comments

  1. Hooray for watching more Fox News. We talked briefly about that, right? It could actually be a good idea, to understand where people are coming from, but it so often comes across as inane and completely misguided.

    My favorite part is the “I’m a Christian, but…” charade. It’s just awesome. Like this one (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39Y2Ra3NpZ8), which is on my brother’s facebook wall so you can kill two birds with one stone.

  2. Sam the yung'un says:

    Hey, they put a bunch of leather chairs in the Chemist room. Now, I don’t know about you but I’ve never heard of a greater stool for God-pondering than one such chair as that in one such pub as the Porter House. If 2011 is the year to start up your Theology Pub Gatherings, I’d say the Porter House is readying itself for you.

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