Given
up already?
How
are you getting on with your New Year resolutions? Given up already?
Or planning to give up soon? Never really meant to see it through.
Perhaps
you set your sights too high. It’s a good way to give yourself with
the perfect excuse for giving up: it was too much to expect of
anyone, no-one could have managed it, so now I’m off the hook.
Or
maybe you didn’t make any resolutions this year. After all, it’s
a silly idea. Why should January 1st
be any different to any other day? It doesn’t really have any other
significance.
They
say that the best resolutions, the ones most likely to the kept, are
the small, low key, realistic ones. The ones that are achievable. If
you achieve it once it builds your confidence and helps you keep
going.
Taking
it one day at a time helps too. I’m not doing this for the rest of
my life – just today. So if I fail today it’s not a catastrophe
and I can try again tomorrow.
Personally
I can’t claim to be very good at keeping New Year resolutions.
But
I do know that prayer helps. Not that prayer is a quick fix. It’s
rare that the answer to prayer is the simple removal of the need or
desire to do whatever it is you want to stop doing. Prayer doesn’t
take away your God-given freedom or your God-given power to make our
own decisions. And to live with the consequences, for good or for
ill. It wouldn’t be freedom if we were always protected from the
results of our poor decisions.
But
in my experience prayer helps me recognize the moment when I have
that choice, the point at which I can still make the decision to do –
or not to do – whatever it is.
But
I need to stop writing. Today’s the deadline for the Grapevine –
and I need to get this in on time!
Happy
New Year
Love
Lorna
(lorna.brabinsmith@btinternet.com)
01522 794868
