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 Devotional:
January 2008
New
Year’s Resolutions
It’s that
wonderful time of year when the holidays are over and we
make a list—not of gifts we need to buy but of
resolutions we have for the coming year. There’s really
nothing different about January 1st than
December 31st, but somehow we think that on
that day, we’ll have more determination to meet our
life’s goals than we did the day before.
I am very much a
goal-oriented, list-making person. I have a list of
things I do every week, a list of prayer goals for the
year, a list of Scriptures that I have memorized and the
ones I am working on. I certainly have nothing against
goal-setting. In fact, I think it’s important to have a
vision for our lives, else nothing will ever change.
But just making a list will not produce change in our
lives.
Proverbs 23:29-35
speaks of a man who drinks himself into a drunken
stupor. He realizes he has been beaten up (v. 35) and
didn’t even know it; yet when he awakens he will drink
again. Now that just sounds downright stupid to most of
us, but haven’t we all done basically the same thing at
times? We don’t like the condition our lives are in,
don’t mind complaining about it, but do not make any
changes. Did you know that one of the definitions of
insanity is doing the same thing expecting to produce
different results? We face the same self-inflicted pain
time and time again, deal with it the same way and
wonder why nothing ever changes in life!
When Joshua’s army
was defeated (Joshua 7), he fell on his face before God
begging to know why victory had eluded them. God tells
him twice to get up and sanctify the people for there
was sin in the camp that had hindered the victory.
Joshua sought God’s answer and when it came he had do
something! When Joshua finally got up and located
the guilty party, he had them stoned, burned with fire,
and then buried with stones. That’s a pretty extreme
solution! But it brought the necessary results.
I don’t know about
you, but I don’t want to be facing the same issues in my
life next year as I am right now. I know people that
have no more victory in their lives now than when they
stepped foot in church 40 years ago, but they are not
willing to let go of the thing that holds them back.
I would like to
encourage you this year to leave behind those things
that keep you in defeat. It may be a relationship, an
attitude, a habit. You know exactly what it is.
Don’t waste your life wandering in the wilderness like
the children of Israel; head for the land of Canaan. I
promise you’ll enjoy life more abundantly!
The best is yet to
come!
Sonya
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