Setting the Course for 2018

So how’s your New Year shaping up so far? Anything you want to improve upon in your life? Setting any goals? Keeping resolutions? Or just going status quo this year?

I’m pretty good at wanting to make big changes while lacking the burning desire needed to make it happen. For example, last year I set a goal of running 365 miles; averaging a mile per day. That’s actually a pretty attainable mark, if only I’d stay more consistent. I came in at 150. There’s a marathon goal floating around in the back of my head somewhere, too. Maybe it just needs to stay there.

It seems every year I want to read through the whole Bible but end up drowning in Leviticus. I always want to be more intentional about leading family worship time in our home, but it’s more sporadic than daily. I want to be better organized, handle money more wisely, give more, write more, waste time less, and come charging out of the New Year’s gate ready to conquer the world. Again – every single year.

I’m the king of good intentions, but fail at follow-through. Anybody with me?

Here’s what I want this year, in typical preacherly three-point outline, alliterated, mind you: I want to live well, love well, and lead well. These may not be specifically measurable goals, but perhaps setting a course beats seeking checkmarks.

I want to live well. By the grace of God in Christ Jesus, I want my life to reflect His goodness, compassion, and righteousness. I want to live in the wisdom that comes through “the fear of the Lord.” I want to live with integrity and humility, passion and perseverance, joy and gratitude. I want to learn more what it means to say with the apostle Paul, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). I want to live well to honor the Lord.

I want to love well. I yearn to learn to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30). His love revealed in Jesus compels my whole-hearted love and devotion, and I want to be zealous in love. And because God so loved us, I want to better “love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31). Starting at home with my wife and sons and reaching to my extended family, my church family, my community, and my world – all those whom God has created in His own image – I want to love well with the love of Christ.

And I want to lead well. The Lord has called me into ministry as Pastor-Teacher, Shepherd, and Overseer. He’s blessed me to be a husband and a father. With such roles comes great responsibility. I want to spend more time in prayer for those whom God has placed under my care. I want to serve more selflessly, teach more diligently, equip more thoroughly, listen more intently, encourage more cheerfully, and exemplify more faithfully what it means to follow Jesus. I want to lead well, as I follow the lead of my King.

Maintaining the status quo is not an option for those who know the call of Christ to “proclaim the gospel to the whole creation” and “make disciples of all nations.” May the Lord give us the grace to follow-through with His good intentions for us this year.