The New Year

I have been making all kinds of resolutions in my head.  Getting up earlier, going to bed earlier, starting a new diet, focusing on some values that I want to pass on to my boys (Amy Carmichael's tenets of love, loyalty, unity and service), new homeschool routines.  Over the last several years I've gotten down the habit of rehearsing my shortcomings and making a plan of attack.  It feels good to start the year with a plan.

But as I went to write these in the journal that I use to write my letters to God, I felt a little foolish.  These "plans" seemed so trivial.  Not bad by any means.  Who has never heard that "to fail to plan is to plan to fail"?  But here I was, standing before the God of the universe who cares so deeply for every detail of my life that He planned them all Himself before time began.  And I changed my mind.

My goal this year is Jesus.

That is all.  I have resolved to love God with all my mind, heart and soul.  To focus on the Hub of the wheel more than all the spinning spokes, which has only served to overwhelm and dizzy me anyway.

I want to be so focused on Him this year that I can taste Him.  

"Taste and see that the LORD is good."  Psalm 34:8a

I want Him to open my eyes.

"I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you..."  Ephesians 1:18

I have my little goals scribbled on scrap paper anyway, to keep the health department from shutting down my kitchen in the meantime.  But I want my focus to be to draw near to Him each minute of each day.  I know He will tell me what He wants me to work on in my life and when He wants me to work on it.  

Of all my past goals, the ones that revolved around Him where the ones that mattered anyway.  If I could distinctly identify one habit that has changed my life the most over the years, it has been my (near) daily Quiet Time with my LORD.  No weight loss program, organizational tool, or cleaning strategy has changed my life the way God has used my daily Quiet Time to change me.  And I am joining a Scripture Memory Team through the LPM blog that will hold me accountable to memorize 2 Scriptures a month because the blessings I reaped from my far from perfect participation 2 years ago blessed me beyond measure.  

But just right now, I don't want any smart action plan to distract me from the importance of the One the plan is for.