2010 New Year’s Resolutions

This year I am posting a much smaller New Year’s Resolution list. Last year proved to be a failure for all of my goals except for one. That’s not to say that having them was worthless; I actually worked on quite a few which helped me make progress last year. However, this year I am narrowing the list down so that I can really focus. So here are my New Year’s Resolutions for 2010.

1. Work on my relationship with God

Matthew 6:33 says, “But seek first his kindgom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Do I really seek God first in my daily life? I can answer a resounding, “no!” The bible says to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind.” How well do I do this in my life? I don’t think I do it very well at all. So how do I plan on improving this situation?

  1. Ask God’s help. I can really do nothing outside of His will, grace and guidance. So that is the first step.
  2. Reading God’s Word. My wife and some of her friends did a “read the Bible in a year” program last year. I am going to follow along with them this year as a discipline to get myself into God’s Word more every day.
  3. Scripture memorization. This is a rollover from last year. I basically want to finish that resolution and memorize the Farewell Discourse in the Gospel of John (John 13:31 – John 17:26).
  4. Daily prayer. This should go without saying, but so often there are other things that I fill my life with instead of talking to the creator of the universe.

2. Work on my relationship with my wife

The most important person to me on this entire planet is my wife. She is my mate, my best friend, my comfort… I am entirely in love with her. Yet so often I allow that relationship to become just another “thing” in my life. I’m not entirely sure how I am going to tackle this one so I’ll have to do some prayer, research and brainstorming. The end result is this… I want to love my wife as Christ loves the church. That is how I am commanded to love my wife in the bible (Ephesians 5:25-27).

3. Be consistent with my children’s music training

I have started (many times now) to teach my older two children piano. I really want to get on track with this and invest the time and energy to give my children a solid musical foundation. It has been a large and positive part of my life and I want to give them the best opportunity to make it a part of their lives.

4. Run a marathon

I trained last year and ran my first half-marathon. This is the year of the full marathon! … I hope. I have found an 18 week training program that I think matches with my schedule and style and I really believe that if I work hard I can obtain this goal. Not only has running been a great source of achievement in my life these last few years, but it is also a large source of fitness.

5. Pay off debts

The slog through the mud of debt continues. And while it continues I am in bondage to the creditors and am unable to invest into the kingdom of God as I would really like to. I keep making this resolution every year, but every year I get closer and closer. I’m sure I won’t be entirely debt free at the end of 2010 (unless God performs a miracle), but I would at least like to eliminate everything except for my student loans and one car payment (yeah, we don’t have a mortgage… renters still).

So that’s it for this year. Just five, but I think they are five fairly large goals. I tried to center my resolutions this year (at least the first two) around the priorities that I would like to have in my life. We’ll see how it goes!