Every year we are faced with opportunity. Opportunity for a fresh start at a new year. A time where we can look back at our previous year and our previous goals and evaluate what went well and what didn't. As I looked back on last year I was met with joy, excitement, frustration, and disappointment as many days were filled with the gambit of emotions. At the beginning of 2009 I hadn't put much thought into my goals other than I wanted to lose weight and get fit—that's on everyone's list, right? Which is why the gym is WAY too crowded in January, and by March it's back to normal. Last year, I missed my weight goal by 5 pounds when I was at my fittest since high school. Now that I've been eating for three along with my wife, I'm 20 pounds off my former weight goal. That was my only goal for the new year of '09, and by May I was right on target to hit it, and maintained from then until about October.
I turned 30 in December, and as I'm creeping up the hill I am resolute to accomplish my goals and be the absolute BEST version of myself that I can be. I know my 30th year is going to be the best one of my life for a multitude of reasons, but I also know that it's going to take a lot of work—blood, sweat, and tears. Nothing that is worth accomplishing is easy. I've spent more time thinking through my resolutions this year than I have in all my previous years, and I WILL accomplish my goals. In fact, at this point in January, things look promising. I've already put a big fat check mark on one of my financial goals—paying off our credit card this year. We are now free from credit card debt thanks to Financial Peace and Dave Ramsey, and we couldn't be more thrilled. Now that's a HUGE check mark!
Among my goals, I intend to be physically healthy, spiritually mature, intellectually wealthy, financially sound, and pastorally strong. There's a myriad of goals in those categories that I'm still journeying through, but I AM resolute. Among the challenges of reaching these goals, I also have the challenge of figuring out how to be a dad—how to be a great dad. Challenges are quite often met with opposition, but this one will also be met with great joy, and the number one reason that my 30th year will be the BEST year of my life. I welcome opposition. I welcome challenge. I will overcome.
The opportunities to recreate yourself are endless, and you are capable of it at any point in the year, and at any point in your life. Don't just jump on the bandwagon of goals and resolutions because others are doing it, but because you realize that there are opportunities for growth in your own life. God loves you too much to let you stay the way you are. He is constantly at work in your life—Philippians 1:6, "being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." His work will never be done in your life and in mine; the process of sanctification will continue until you meet Christ.
I guess I could be labeled a "Construction Zone" because I am a work in progress. The work this year is going to be done more often, more swiftly, and more promptly as I am more open to growing exponentially now than I ever have been.
