So many of us make New Year’s Resolutions. Most of which, are forgotten by the end of January. New Year’s Restorations. So I would like to suggest an alternate course of action for 2017.

View this coming calendar year as the next chapter in your life. Not something significantly different from 2016, just the Next Chapter in the book of your life.

Let’s not make it about the things you do in your life, the things you want to change: rather, let’s make it about who you Are. Let’s say that 2017 is a year where you can recreate yourself, become a new person, let go of past failures and successes and start fresh as a totally different person. STOP who you’ve been: START who you want to be.

The first obstacle you will face are your old destructive habits. Make a decision to STOP them. The second obstacle you will face is the perception of you that other people hold. You cannot change their perception. You can change who you want to be. Pray they catch up. (Note: they may not.)

The important thing is that you first make a conscious decision to become the new you that you aspire to be. The next thing is to address those areas of your life that inhibit you from becoming that person. END resentment, retaliation, proving yourself to people, etc. You don’t have to win. You do not have to be right. What you HAVE TO DO is make a difference.Even if your calling is held in suspicion by others, you must fulfill God’s calling and design upon your life.

What? You say you don’t know what it is? Maybe it’s because you are playing it too safe. Becoming a new you will take a great effort. Do not think that you will simply float into becoming a new person. You will not. CHANGE takes effort, as does any responses to change.

My advice in this effort is secondary to what God suggests— Commit your works to the Lord, and your plans will be established. (Proverbs 16:3)

Trust God…, and step out in fear and trembling.

 

May this New Year see a new you, and may your friends catch up quickly,

Gary

Every year, at least in the United States, there seems to be this mad shift from Thanksgiving, where we all find something for which to be thankful and watch football and eat way too much turkey, to Christmas. It used to start with shopping madness on Black Friday (after Thanksgiving). Now the mayhem begins on Thanksgiving or even before. Like October.

Somewhere in this shift, Americans are supposed to move from being thankful (more likely a “turkey-coma”), to a frantic frenzy of trying to find gifts to give to others; not necessarily out of joy, mind you, but rather out of guilt, compulsion, tradition, and one-up-man-ship; and sometimes even love.

This may be the one time of year when Americans try to think about other people én masse. Frankly, who cares about the reason; it’s just fantastic that we think about someone else other than ourselves. Incredible! Christmas can bring out the good in people.

As we make this shift from Thanksgiving to Christmas do try to remember that we, as Americans, do have a great deal for which to be thankful. Just look at the state of the world around us. Even given our myriad of problems, what other country lives in the prosperity that we do? At our worst, we are better off that 75% of the rest of the world.

Christmas should be a time we are all reminded to pay it forward. It is a season to give to others for their delight, not to be recognized for our lavish gifts. Our giving should reflect God’s gift of His Son to us, for our delight, for our salvation. Christmas is a time when we are called upon in a special way to honor God and to honor people in our hearts and actions.

So this Christmas give, but spend proportionally, and give freely. If you do, you will be reflecting the original meaning of Christmas. The gift of God to us.

Merry Christmas!
  Gary

Really interesting, little bit of history:

Tour boats ferry people out to the USS Arizona Memorial in Hawaii every thirty minutes. I went into a small gift shop to kill time. In the gift shop, I purchased a small book entitled, “Reflections on Pearl Harbor ” by Admiral Chester Nimitz.

“Sunday, December 7th, 1941–Admiral Chester Nimitz was attending a concert in Washington D.C. He was paged and told there was a phone call for him.  When he answered the phone, it was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the phone.  He told Admiral Nimitz that he (Nimitz) would now be the Commander of the Pacific Fleet.

Admiral Nimitz flew to Hawaii to assume command of the Pacific Fleet.  He landed at Pearl Harbor on Christmas Eve, 1941.  There was such a spirit of despair, dejection and defeat–you would have thought the Japanese had already won the war. On Christmas Day, 1941, Admiral Nimitz was given a boat tour of the destruction wrought on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. Big sunken battleships and navy vessels cluttered the waters every where you looked.

As the tour boat returned to dock, the young helmsman of the boat asked, “Well Admiral, what do you think after seeing all this destruction?”  Admiral Nimitz’s reply shocked everyone within the sound of his voice.

Admiral Nimitz said, “The Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could ever make, or God was taking care of America.  Which do you think it was?”

Shocked and surprised, the young helmsman asked, “What do mean by saying the Japanese made the three biggest mistakes an attack force ever made?”

Nimitz explained,

Mistake number one: the Japanese attacked on Sunday morning.  Nine out of every ten crewmen of those ships were ashore on leave.  If those same ships had been lured to sea and been sunk–we would have lost 38,000 men instead of 3,800.

Mistake number two: when the Japanese saw all those battleships lined in a row, they got so carried away sinking those battleships, they never once bombed our dry docks opposite those ships.  If they had destroyed our dry docks, we would have had to tow every one of those ships to America to be repaired.  As it is now, the ships are in shallow water and can be raised.  One tug can pull them over to the dry docks, and we can have them repaired and at sea by the time we could have towed them to America.  And I already have crews ashore anxious to man those ships.

Mistake number three: every drop of fuel in the Pacific theater of war is in top of the ground storage tanks five miles away over that hill. One attack plane could have strafed those tanks and destroyed our fuel supply.  That’s why I say the Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could make or God was taking care of America.”

I’ve never forgotten what I read in that little book.  It is still an inspiration as I reflect upon it.  In jest, I might suggest that because Admiral Nimitz was a Texan, born and raised in Fredricksburg, Texas.  He was a born optimist.  But any way you look at it, Admiral Nimitz was able to see a silver lining in a situation and circumstance where everyone else saw only despair and defeatism.

President Roosevelt had chosen the right man for the right job.  We desperately needed a leader that could see silver linings in the midst of the clouds of dejection, despair and defeat.

There is a reason that our national motto is, IN GOD WE TRUST.