New Year's Resolution...A Real One

I was never one for New Year's Resolutions. I always joke, "My New Year's Resolution is to not make any resolutions this year." If I did, it was more like a goal for Bible Quizzing. But this year, with little to no involvement in quizzing, I thought I would make a real New Year's Resolution. And there might be another reason.

During my lunch breaks at work, when I got too tired of studying Greek over and over, I would read a book. I was reading The Naked Anabaptist, but I for a short time misplaced the book, so I moved onto Dr. Foster's famous book The Celebration of Disciplines, a book on spiritual disciplines. I was amazed on how spiritually disciplined Dr. Foster was. He was so disciplined, some people would probably claim it's impossible, without seeing him practice them in action. But that's not what I reflected on the most. I merely reflected on the general subject of "spiritual discipline," or even more on the phrase "spiritual discipline."

See, I had no problem with the spritual part. I was being spiritual. I read my Bible. I prayed. I went to church. But it was the discipled part that I was struggling with. I prayed when it was convenient. I read my Bible in the spare time of my spare time, when I had nothing else to do. I went to church only if I was naturally up Sunday morning and had nothing to do in the early afternoon. Nothing was regular, and when nothing was regular, it seemed to be as if my faith was on the side. Well, I can't say I was pleased with myself. Actually, the opposite was true. I was unhappy and miserable with myself. While the irregular Bible study, prayer and church fellowship might be fine for a spiritually newborn Christian, it's not okay for someone who has been a Christian for some time, and especially not okay for someone who has been through 4 years of Bible college. It was like a professional portrait artist settling on drawing stick people. That's just not right. And something had to be done. That's where my New Year's Resolution will come into the picture.

But first, some of this lack of spiritual discipline just couldn't wait until 2012. It was the church part. This came especially crucial with meeting with my small group less and less. I need that Christian fellowship, some people to meet with and worship with, some people to talk about the Lord, as well as listening. So I made it my priority that the week I moved out to Dover, the next Sunday I would start going to church out here as well. And so far, so good. I've been faithfully attending Stony Brook Mennonite Church. I'm still not as involved as I would like to be, and maybe that could be my New Year's Resolution when it comes to Church Fellowship. But it seems like the congregation has embraced me there at least. I think for my New Year's Resolution when it comes to church, I'm going to start going to Sunday School.

Now that we got the communal discipline out of there, now onto the more inward disciplines. The first one was the Bible reading. My eyes became open to this one when I realized that I was once again behind on quizzing questions, as I was last year. I had 9 months to finish one chapter, or 51 verses, worth of questions, and I only got half way there. But I realized what might have been my problem was relativeness. The last time I full did a chapter worth of questions (actually it was 2 chapters) is when I got to be the quiz coach for Conestoga. Since I used my questions for my quizzers, I strived to get them done for them. But last year, only doing timekeeping and not having a team of my own, there was no urge to write the quizzing questions. And this year, with not even having a role in the staff, there's no rush to complete this set. But when I was at work, to keep my mind from not being bored to death doing menial tasks, I would think about the theological implications of what little I was reading in the Bible. And I would have good thoughts. So when I had a little spare time back at my apartment, I would type of these ideas on a Word documents, and I kind of liked it. You might have seen one. I called it "Mark: A Story About A Suffering Servant." I hope you liked it as much as I did. It motivated me to read my Bible more, and study my Bible more.

So I've decided for part of my New Year's Resolution is to follow along with quizzing in John, and write a devotional commentary on it. Now I have to be smart and reasonable with this goal. Halfway through January I'm going to begin taking 2 Grad courses, so I can't overwhelm myself. So for January, I will write a devotional commentary, 1 chapter, 1 week. When I hit February and March, I'm going to switch to a couple chapters per week, but still with the same amount of reading and studying. That will get me to April. We'll see how effective it is, and how on task I can stay, and we'll go from there.

But I know I don't want to go to a reading schedules. Whether it has been Read the Bible in a Year, Half a Year, 3 months, whatever, never a fan of it. Why? Well, if a reading schedule could speak, this would the conversation you'd be having with it...

Reading schedule: "Today, please read John 1."
You: "Ok, got it."
*You read John 1*
Reading schedule: "You read John 1 today?"
You: "Yes, but I really didn't get it. Nothing made sense"
Reading schedule: "Tough luck, we got to stick to the schedule. Move on to John 2 tomorrow."

See, I never thought that made any sense. What's the point of reading it if you're not going to understand it or get anything out of it, or even vaguely remember it? Then it's no more than a chore, or a good luck charm ("If I read the Bible, I'll get blessed!"). The call to read and study the Bible is to serve as a mirror where we can reflect on ourselves. And if that reflection takes a while, so be it. I remember once spending one week on one verse alone! I did not get it at first, and I had to read it over and over, as well as just step back and reflect on it. And once I did that for a week, I got it and I came out a better man. I want my Bible study to be one that makes a better man, for not only my sake, but the sake of the people around me.

The other spiritual discipline I want to work on is prayer. I don't know why I let this one go. My God desires to meet with me and talk with me. It is such a privilege that a holy God would want to meet with a sinner like me! Why would I give it up? So My New Year's Resolution is as simple as this: I will pray at least once a day. And just in general, I will pray more. Once again, I don't want to be held down by a schedule and I want to allow room to be spontaneous. So maybe prayer will come twice a day, or three times, or more! But it will definitely happen at least once.

So here's the official list of 2012 New Year's Resolution, with what I mentioned above, as well some other things I would like to have:

2012 New Year's Resolution

1. Read a couple chapters of the Bible once a day


2. Write a devotional commentary once a week from January to March


3. Pray at least once a day, but allow room to be spontaneous for more


4. Continue to go to church weekly, and eventually add Sunday School to it.


5. Talk more openly to my girlfriend


6. have more fun in life!!!!!!!!!!!!!


7. Complete hard vocals on all Rock Band games


8. Learn to play a real guitar. Really


9. take voice lessons so i can seranade my girlfriend :) (she wrote that one)


10. Keep my 4.0 GPA strong in grad school.