My New Year’s Resolution

As hard as I’m going to work on becoming physically healthy this year, my physical health will not be my main focus. My new year’s resolution for 2016 is to become healthy in EVERY aspect of my life. To do this, I must concentrate my greatest focus on becoming spiritually healthy.

I have put a lot of thought into what will be my new year’s resolution for 2016. It needs to be realistic so that I don’t give up by week three of January. I realize fitness as a new year’s resolution is so common that it is almost a joke, but I desperately need to get healthy. I have lived way too many years with the thought that I’m young enough to concentrate on getting healthy “next year” but “next year” never came. I woke up this morning feeling tired and old and wondering when “next year” passed me by. All I do know is that it must have been a very long time ago because I have felt old and tired for a very long time. This week I plan to research diet and exercise plans and find the one that I am most likely to stick with and, therefore, most likely to be successful with.

As hard as I’m going to work on becoming physically healthy this year, my physical health will not be my main focus. My new year’s resolution for 2016 is to become healthy in EVERY aspect of my life. To do this, I must concentrate my greatest focus on becoming spiritually healthy. I Timothy 4:7b-8 says, “…train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.” This year I plan to…no, scratch that. This year I WILL become healthy. I will focus my mind on my relationship with God and become a better steward of everything He has given me, especially on my body which desperately needs both spiritual and physical toning.

Jumping Roller-Coasters

Picture yourself on the largest, scariest rollercoaster you’ve ever seen.  On this particular ride there are two separate coasters.  They run in opposite directions on tracks built side-by-side and cross beside each other in a valley between two big drops.  From certain vantage points on the track you can see the other coaster and you notice a child who is not properly strapped in, and you fear they will fall to their death at any moment.  You don’t believe anyone else can see what you see.  You believe you are the only chance that child has to survive.  You make the decision.  You unbuckle your seatbelt.  You brace yourself to jump from your coaster to the child’s coaster as they cross beside each other for just a split second.  Get ready.  Wait for it.  Wait for it.  Jump!

Did you make it to the other coaster in time?  Did you make it to the other coaster at all?  Did you catch the child?  Did either of you live?  Did one or both of you die?

The last two weeks of my life have consisted of nothing but roller-coasters…the scary ones with no known ending in sight.  To make it even worse, railcars from rollercoasters I rode over twenty years ago have attached themselves to these new coasters.  You know the kind I mean.  The old coasters you told yourself were gone.  You insisted to yourself whatever had happened was over and you had moved on to better things…but found later that buried things were not really dealt with.  The added weight from these rusty, old railcars has produced extra speed and a rougher ride and has nearly pulled the entire coaster from the tracks more than once in recent days.

I have always been a strong person.  I have always been the one people would come to for guidance and help…the one to fix everyone’s problems.  I have been asked to jump from coaster to coaster many times in my life with no safety harness and have done it successfully to rescue whomever needed it each time.  But right now I’m tired…too tired to jump.  The rusty old cars have just stolen too much strength from me and I just can’t rescue anyone else right now.  But I feel so guilty for not jumping anyway.

King Solomon figured out years ago that sometimes you just have to let the rollercoaster run its course and not feel guilty.  Some times you just have to let the Master handle it without your help.  “To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under the heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which was planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace…I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8,14 KJV).”