According to a CNN news article I read, 100 million Americans will make New Year’s resolutions. About 4 out of 5 of those Americans will break their resolutions before the year’s out, and most of them will break their resolutions before we get through January.
God chose to place us inside the scope of time and set the earth in orbit giving us a cyclical sense of time. Days and nights and seasons and years – round and round we go. When a new year rounds the corner I generally feel like I am given a fresh opportunity to make some wise and necessary adjustments to my life. January is like a washed and cleaned off blackboard – all the old stray markings of 2010 evaporate on 1/1/11 at 12:00:01 AM. Now the truth is, I could make life adjustment decisions on – oh – say, April 19th, but there’s something about a new year that invites me to reconsider my life and the path I’m on.I’m not sure I’m talking about resolutions exactly, since they seem so linked to my personal strength and ability to accomplish a life change and God knows, I’ve never been good at self-sufficient change. I need grace...Not resolutions but Grace-olutions! It’s about taking the opportunity offered to me as I switch out calendars, to identify a few specific hope-soaked goals I’d like to shoot for in 2011. Without question, those goals will require not only God’s authorship (if He’s not the One directing me in setting those goals, then I should give up before I start) but also God’s grace that encourages and empowers me to walk it out day by day, week by week and month by month.
My 2011 hope-soaked “Graceolution” can be summed up in one word: Honor.
Lord, help me see what I’ve been missing in the past. Help me see You. I mean, really see You in the way You desire to be seen and to honor what You show me. And help me see others - their pain and brokenness and help me find the compassion to take the time to connect, and relay to them, that they are seen and valued and honored.
Lord, help me hear what I’ve been missing in the past. Help me to take the time to hear You, to hear Your heart. Help me set aside my own preconceived notions, my own understanding, and truly lean in to hear the still small Voice. And Lord, help me hear others. Help me release my own agenda to be heard and take the time to really hear what others are saying. And when they speak, help me make room in my small boxed-in outlook to honor the thoughts and opinions of others.
Lord, help me speak words of honor. Guard my heart and my mouth from rushing to exalt myself above others. Guard my heart and my mouth from bringing dishonor to You or to others and grant me the heart and the words to speak honorably about You and to You, and about others and to others. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my strength and my Redeemer. (Ps 19:14)
That’s my hope for 2011. Honoring God. Honoring Others.
“Let love be without hypocrisy… Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another…” (Romans 12:9-10)
