Nuovo Anno Felice (Happy New Year!)

Okay, so I don't speak Italian, but I did want to get your attention. It's a new year and you know what that brings don't you?

New possibilities! (like learning a new language?)

These possibilities are for all of life, too. They can be personal, spiritual, familial, professional, and many others. The big question is whether you will seek new possibilities or just continue in the status quo, stick with the same old program, live in the rut your life has already formed...

...or you can change.

I don't have a long list of resolutions, but I do have some goals for this year; some things that I want to accomplish, to experience some things that I've never done before. But to accomplish them I need some new disciplines. So in essence, I've made some resolutions.

First of all I have taken Wesley's Covenant Renewal to a new personal level. That means that I will be focused more completely on my own spiritual enrichment in this year. I've struggled personally at times this past year as I have studied much, but with an agenda to teach/preach instead of grow. My focus this year is to become a more fully functional Christian who also happens to teach Bible, preach Gospel and pray continuously!

I want to push myself physically this year. I swam on a triathlon team a couple of years ago and did very well (even though I was much more out of shape than I realized!). This year I may rejoin a team in the Valparaiso Triathlon and just maybe do the whole thing myself! Beyond this I'd like to run in a race or two with my ultimate goal in running a marathon sometime in the near future (the next 10 years, no sense pushing myself!). That means I've got to get in shape. I'm not dissatisfied with my weight, nor my body shape, I'm just out of shape. So, I'm going to fix that.

I'm going to make the most of every opportunity with my family this year. I'm going to be a grandfather some time in February, I'll be teaching my youngest daughter to drive (starting yesterday if she has her way), we'll take a nice vacation this summer and steal as many days as possible to just be together and enjoy one anothers' company. It's critically important because it will be a crazy, busy year. I'll be traveling more than ever, going to Fort Worth in April for 2 weeks for UM General Conference, to Grand Rapids for Jurisdictional Conference in July and all of the driving in between for meetings and such. We're still building at COFS, so there are the details and meetings that are required for all of that, plus all of the normal meetings, visits and events required for shepherding a large church. That makes my family time all that more important.

Lastly (well not really, I'll be seeking new possibilities wherever they might come this year!) I am going to write something. I've been working on several book ideas, Study ideas, classes to teach, sermon series. I work on several of these each year, but this year I'm going to complete at least one of them preparing to try and publish it. While I'm at it I also will be doing more of this...blogging. I didn't do very well last year. It was to be devotional in nature and I let too many people down. So I'll be writing often and seeking feedback. I pray you will read and write back.

So, I choose to change!

It will be a new year filled with lots of stuff! Yet it will all be good stuff, the right stuff. (Plus all of the things that life throws in along the way.) They're all possibilities, not probabilities. They are not guaranteed, nothing is. But it's the possibilities that makes life exciting. Sure I enjoy my life just as it is, but with a few changes here and there (and there are always changes) I will find even more joy in it, as long as I keep Christ first!

Feliz Año Nuevo llenado de los possiblities nuevos del dios para usted. (spanish)
Il nuovo anno felice si è riempito di nuovi possiblities del dio per voi. (italian)
(Happy New Year filled with God's new possiblities for you.) (english, in case you didn't get it.)

Pace/Paz/Peace ><>
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