Skip to main content

Resolutions Are For Those Who Aren't Already Awesome


Here we are. It's 2020! Of course you know what that means, right?

It's time for YMCA's, gyms, and other workout facilities to offer deals for everyone who resolved to get in better shape. This is the Black Friday for those places because we've all spent the last month over-indulging and telling ourselves we'd get back to a disciplined lifestyle after the holidays. 

The holidays are over and do you want to know how many official resolutions I have made? 

None. Zero. Zilch. Just like the amount of cookies I am going to let you smack out of my hand, I am not making any new resolutions.

Why? Because resolutions are for those who aren't already awesome. Listen, I'm not saying I don't have things to work on, like humility

Really, no resolutions?

via GIPHY
I told my kids that instead of making resolutions for myself this year, I would be making resolutions for them. They were super excited to hear that. 

I should confess this idea of making resolutions for other people is not original with me. My wife has been doing this for years. She just doesn't tell us she's doing it. It comes in the form of honey-do lists and other assorted to-do's that she lays at my feet. Twenty-some years ago she probably didn't tell anyone she had met the man of her dreams. I was probably described as a work in progress, something her friends might have even assumed was a lost cause. 

Looking back, now I don't know if the changes I've made were of my own volition or part of her master plan. Either way, here I am.

No Resolutions Means No Expectations, Right?

Just because I have no formal resolutions does not mean I am taking a year off from doing anything. I'll still be here, sharing my random ridiculous thoughts. I'd apologize, but you're choosing to be here

Hopefully I'll be more regular in offering posts, like where I let you see the questions I ask while spending time reading the Bible. I'll work on being even more authentic and open with my thoughts. I know...scary. 

One last thought for today. My oldest child may have inherited some tendencies because when I suggested New Year's resolutions, she repeated the title of this post almost verbatim. I reminded her that resolutions are biblical.

They just don't have to be limited to one time a year. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Accountable

I recently officiated a wedding. The ceremony was simple, lovely, and ended with another couple professing to keep the covenant of marriage. But it all started with a clarification...from me. At our first premarital counseling session, as I have done with every couple I have agreed to marry, I clarified a couple of matters. First, I officiate Christian weddings, where both spouses-to-be are professing Christians. I firmly believe that marriage is difficult enough, without adding disagreements about God into the mix. Second, as a minister of Jesus Christ, I believe the pastor’s role in a wedding is to represent the blessing of God on that union. So we have several sessions of premarital counseling where we discuss married life. It’s not that I have this imaginary card in my head, with a picture of me on the front and my stats on the back. (You know, like a baseball card.) Ok, I do picture cards. Pastor cards! And being a competitive guy, I want my stats to look good. The number of coupl...

The Facebook Maybe

Granted, I'm a pastor. I have Type-A tendencies. Ok, my tendencies border on freakish OCD behavior patterns, but... Few things bother me more than the Facebook 'maybe'. I suppose I could go on and on about the grey areas of our society and the refusal of people to accept absolute standards. I could discuss the great need of people to accept that what is wrong for one person is likely wrong for everyone. I should certainly be concerned about mentioning that someone might have sin in their life. But I don't believe the Facebook 'maybe' is quite sin. Perhaps if I were coming up with new sins, I would add this to the list. But alas... Some might think the Facebook 'maybe' did not exist prior to the Internet, but they would be wrong. When I was in high school and asked a girl out on a date, I would normally be told that if they had no other plans, if nobody else called them, if there was nothing good on television and their hair did not need washing, then per...

Crossing the Lines

I'm sure this has been said before. Certainly I'm not the first to rant about this. I'm positive I won't be the last. And in my usual manner of coming to a story late, I want to comment on Bobby Petrino, recently fired head coach of Arkansas. But this isn't really about Bobby, or I should say, not just  about Bobby. He is simply the latest in a series of stories where big-time athletes, coaches, or celebrities does something stupid and gets caught. But that's not the story, because, quite frankly, we all do dumb stuff. But when too many people get angry, defenders line up to separate the personal life from the professional life. I actually heard a woman quoted, in relation to the Arkansas story, saying that Bobby has won a lot of football games for them. Oh, so that makes it ok?  Arkansas  went 11-2 last season, so the head coach can be immoral? Is that how this is supposed to work? Why draw the line there? If splitting personal decisions from professiona...