It’s already
January 12, 2013 and I have done nothing more than THINK about resolutions –
not make them. I’ve kind of given up on
it really, such has been the degree of my success, or lack thereof. Every year I do what a lot of other people
do. I think that I should probably eat
better, and exercise more, and be kinder, and keep my mouth shut instead of
rushing in where angels fear to tread.
The latter two are ongoing battles, and the former get left in the dust
after maybe the first week of the New Year.
Last year I did determine to read 30 fiction and 10 non-fiction books
and I reached those goals by August – but I LOVE to read, so I’m thinking that
didn’t really count the way reaching healthful eating goals or consistent
exercise would have. (Exercise is definitely
below the bottom of my list! Down there in the minuses actually.)
If I was
going to make one resolution at the beginning of this and every year, it would
be the one recorded by the ancient King David of Israel the Old Testament book
of Psalms.
Psalm 37:4 “Delight
yourself in the Lord.”
Having set so
may unrealistic goals and made so many unsuccessful resolutions for many years,
I have come to the conclusion that this is the only one worth pursuing and the
only one in which I’m likely to experience success. It’s another of those goals, like reading,
which is easier to accomplish because the Lord is so easy to love. The rewards are intangible but no less real
because they are. Things like joy,
comfort, wisdom, compassion, forgiveness, acceptance, and a host of others too
numerous to mention, are my daily fare when I am delighting in the Lord.
Apart from
delighting myself in the Lord, I like to leave what comes next to Him, and rely
on Him to set my goals for me, as David suggests in the second part of Psalm
37:4:
“Delight yourself in
the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.”
Maybe the
reason I had so little success keeping past resolutions and goals is because I
was pursuing what I thought I ought to be doing instead of simply delighting in
the Lord and allowing Him to put His desires for me on my heart and then pursuing
THEM.
I’ve
mentioned before that the only devotional I read consistently is “My Utmost for His Highest”, a
compilation of the teachings of Oswald Chambers, put together by his wife after
his death.
On January 2nd,
the reading was entitled, “Will You Go
Out Without Knowing?”, based on the Scripture from the New Testament book
of Hebrews, chapter 11. In speaking of
the patriarch Abraham, verse 8 says:
“By faith Abraham, when called to go
to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even
though he did not know where he was going.”
Chambers
asks the question: “Have you ever ‘gone out’ in this way?”, and then goes on to say, “If so, there is no logical answer possible
when anyone asks you what you are doing.”
If you have
been reading my blogs from the last couple of months then you know I’ve been
undergoing the long process of being evaluated to be a kidney donor. I’m donating a kidney to a woman from my
church whom I didn’t know all that well before we began this adventure together. I embarked on the journey when I heard that
she needed a donor, not because I love having surgery, but because I strongly
sensed that this was something Jesus wanted me to do. Many people, including some on the donor
medical staff, have wondered why I would do such a thing for someone other
than a relative. As Chambers says, there
is no logical answer to satisfy some.
Abraham was content to know that it was the Lord doing the calling out,
and so am I.
Chambers
goes on to say:
“Have you been asking God what He
is going to do? He will never tell
you. God does not tell you what He is
going to do – He reveals to you who He is.
Do you believe in a miracle working God, and will you “go out” in
complete surrender to Him until you are not surprised one iota by anything He
does?”
Believe God is always the God you
know Him to be when you are nearest to Him.
Let the attitude of your life be a continual willingness to “go out’ in
dependence upon God, and your life will have a sacred and inexpressible charm
about it that is very satisfying to Jesus.
You must learn to ‘go out’ through your convictions, creeds, or
experiences until you come to the point in your faith where there is nothing
between yourself and God.
I’d like to
think that I’ve finally reached the place where “going out” into an unknown
WITH God is all I ever really want to do.
If I do the choosing, I will always do the safe and familiar thing. But if I delight in the Lord, amazingly He
begins to quicken my heart to do the things that are on HIS heart – things I
would never even have contemplated.
It was the
Lord who put it in my heart to volunteer for my first ever missions trip – at 61
– with teens - a group I hadn’t even mingled with since my own girls were
teens. And He encouraged me to go on two
other trips after that as well. It was
He who quickened my heart to desire to work with a foreign student to teach
English as a second language, at 65. If
I hadn’t pursued that adventure, I’d have missed getting to know my wonderful
Japanese student and finding a new friend.
It was He who invited me to
volunteer to teach a middle school Sunday school class. If you have a middle schooler, then you know
that this was a CRAZY idea that HAD to be the Lord’s!!
Why would I
ever want to choose my own path when the Lord’s plan for me is so much better?
So this year,
I’m going to once again forgo the fruitless idea of setting resolutions and
goals and let the Lord do the choosing. What
I will do is pursue the thing that will certainly ensure success in whatever
lies ahead, I will delight in the Lord, and then wait with great expectation to
see what He has in store for me this year!
I don’t know what it will be, but I know it will be better than anything
I can ask or even imagine!
“Now to Him who is able
to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according to His power that
is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout
all generations, forever and ever! Amen.”
Ephesians 3:20-21
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