Dear Family and Friends,
 

Happy New Year 2012 = the potential gift of 360+ days. 
Each day of this year we are alive is a gift unearned and undeserved.  Remember: your commitments determine your direction—the quality and joy of your life.  Drift is definitely the easiest way to live, but drift always leads to decay. 
Discipline opens doorways to freedom.  To growth.  To health.

Who will you be a year from now?  Will you be:
•    Stronger or weaker physically.
•    Brighter or duller mentally.
•    More alive to Christ or absorbed in self spiritually.
•    More isolated and alone or interconnected and fulfilled                           relationally.

We are not on this journey alone: “The eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him.” (2 Chronicles 16:9)  But the same God who gives us grace and strength also gives us the capacity and freedom to determine the direction (up or down) of our life.  He strengthens choices in the right direction.  His grace in Christ allows us to get up and go on when we fall. But deciding direction is our choice; and going up always demands effort, discipline, goals.  Going down takes nothing but doing what you feel like doing, doing what feels good at the moment, the path of least resistance.

Make some goals for 2012.  If you don’t know where you are going, I guarantee you won’t get there.  How do you want to grow as a Christian this year?   What is something in your life that should die?
So many people say they hate to set goals because they rarely reach them.  I know the feeling, but every time I set a goal with a plan for achieving it I get so much further than if I don’t even try.

In a few days I will be 59 years old.  I have a bad back, arthritic knees, weak ankles and an almost overwhelming impulse to avoid exercise.  But I made a bucket-list goal of running three miles and doing 30 consecutive push-ups on my 60th birthday.  So a couple of times every week, even on cold days with bad knees, I suit up, stretch tight muscles and head out for a fairly pathetic run.  I never feel like running.  I run because I am committed to running.  I read the Bible every day because I am committed to reading the Bible—every day.  I avoid junk TV and junk food because I am committed to staying healthy in mind and body.  And looking back, I am glad for every tough run I took, every hour I didn’t waste, every empty calorie I didn’t eat, every morning I began with God.  And most of all—for God’s grace when I was stupid, which is often!

Set some goals: Grow in grace and in the knowledge of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Love ya, Richard