NOT A RESOLUTION

I'm not someone who makes New Year's Resolutions to lose weight, or eat healthy, or what have you. It's my understanding that those who do almost never follow through with their plans anyway. So, I've never felt the need to follow that trend.

But the other day my dear brother in Christ, Dan Notti, asked me to help him keep a few promises he's made to himself this year. After reading his list I was inspired to create one of my own.

Based on what I was already hearing the Lord whisper to me over the last several weeks, I wrote down these goals:

• To abide in Christ more and more.
• To let love be my dominant response to others.
• To spend more quality time with my wife, Wendy.
• To spiritually mentor my sons.
• To write at least one book and possibly a second book before year's end.

The calling to abide in Christ more and more stems from a simple realization that I need more of Jesus in my life. Everything else I might desire flows out of this.

If I hope to love more in the year ahead, it will only happen to the degree that I allow Jesus to live and breathe in me on a daily basis.

My attention to my wife's needs, and to my son's spiritual development will only emerge if I am connected to Christ and abiding in Him.

Writing my books might not seem to be necessarily dependent upon my experience of Jesus, but I would certainly prefer to be led by His Spirit as I write these books so that what He wants to be communicated is what I publish.

So, please don't call this a New Year's Resolution. It's nothing of the sort. It's simply my decision to lean more into Jesus today and to continually do so until I see Him face to face.

-kg