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About New Year's Resolutions
Your Plan or God's Plan

Get your pen and paper out. We are going to make our New Year's Resolutions.

Summers and falls come and go and then comes Thanksgiving and Christmas. What is next? The New Year is coming. It is time to make your list of New Year’s Resolutions.

I have made New Year Resolutions every year since I was very young and a new engineer starting my career. I was told if you want to be successful; you need a list. . . . Actually, I was told I needed yearly list, then a monthly list, a weekly list and finally a daily list.

How to Make the Best New Year's List.

This year I am approaching my list making differently. Oh, I will still have my list; I will just approach my list making with some help. I will seek God’s direction of what to put on my list. When I feel it is God directing me, then it goes on my list.

As I look back over the past many years that I have made my list at the end of each year, I see a common theme. The theme shows that my lists were all about Me, Myself and I.

Each list was all about self. My selfish self. Oh, the items on the list directed me toward my goals, but they were my goals. I never once consulted God about what He would have me put on my list.

Learn from Your Past Experiences.

Time is a valuable teacher. The years teach if we only listen!

I so often have looked back over each year that closed and felt disappointment and sorrow. So many of my goals went unfulfilled. Year after year, I was let down.

Why?

Because they were "my" goals. I believe one reason some of us find ourselves so miserable at the end of the year is because we look to the past with incredible critical eyes, often forgetting that many of our unfulfilled goals were never meant for us, anyway.

These were lessons, mostly overlooked lessons. Each year I kept repeating the same-old ritual of setting goals, expecting a different result. (Remember the joke. The definition of stupid is doing the same-old thing over and over expecting different results). Well, it isn’t really a joke. It is reality for so many of us.

See, God has a plan for each of us. Too often, we do not consider what God has in store for us. We tune into our wants and as Frank Sinatra’s song, “My Way” expresses it, “I did it my way.”

Resolve with me to set your goals using a different approach. Pray to know God’s plan. Seek God’s help in setting your direction. Your list may have one item or dozens of items on it. It will no longer be your list but you and God’s list . . . Our Way.

A List Worth Keeping!

Write the list down and tuck it away. At the end of the year, see what you have accomplished. You find that you have the most powerful helper any person could ask for. The Holy Spirit will guide you, strengthen you, and teach you. Your will not be alone.

Enter the New Year with a quiet peace knowing that your path is designed especially for you. Remember, just as your fingerprints are unique to you and you alone, God has designed you to accomplish a plan that is custom made, just for you.

Know God's Plan for You

Jesus said, “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you; you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you” (John 15:7, NKJV).

I hope you make it your desire and prayer to know God’s plan for you during the coming year.

Item 1.   Abide in Jesus and abide in His word.

My prayer for you is, "May God bless you and keep you strong as you glorify Him."