Thursday 1 January 2009

Hmm- New Year's resolutions. How are you doing? Given that the year is just a bit over 6 hours old, some of those brave resolutions should still be intact. After all, we haven't had much chance to break them, have we?

When you look at it, there are really only two types of resolution. Either they're about something of which we want more- like fitness or time with our loved ones. Or, they're about something of which we want less - like smoking or excess weight, for instance. Apparently men fare better with their resolutions if they split them up into manageable bits, and women fare better if they tell their friends about them. That way their friends can keep them in check and ask them how its going.

When I was little, most years someone would slip a diary in with my presents at Christmas, and I would resolve firmly that I was going to write in it every day. The first few days would fill with gushing entries about all the places I had gone and the new toys I had played with. As the days went by, the entries would tail off to mundane things like "went out today", and by the time school term started, the whole project had been abandoned as a bad idea.

It doesn't have to be that way, though. If we pick the right kind of resolutions, and enlist the right kind of help, there's no reason why we can't make a change to our lives in 2009. Last year I resolved to drive a bit less and walk a bit more - and to my amazement I seem to have halved my mileage! Who'd have thought it? Perhaps its all to do with confidence.

The story is told of a desperate man whose son had a history of terrible illness. The man had tried everything to cure his boy, including talking to the religious people. But nothing seemed to work. Finally, he threw himself at the feet of Jesus and begged him to help. Jesus said he would do just that if the man would only believe. Perhaps that request seemed like the last straw, and in what has become the classic cry of the hopeful, the man cried out "Lord I do believe - help my unbelief". At that very moment, the boy was healed and the man's outlook changed forever.

If you want to keep that New Year's resolution, then it's not impossible. It'll take a bit of faith. And, like the old song says 'you'll get by with a little help from your friends'. Talking of which, don't forget that you might be vital to helping them keep their resolutions too.

Have a positive New Year, and I hope that your resolutions last, at least a bit longer than you expected them to.