Especially for our Chinese brothers, here is Nathan’s New Year blog that should have published on the 1st January. 新年快乐
A quick search on the internet reveals that only about 8% of people who make New Year’s resolutions actually manage to keep them and hit their goals. Now, we know that after about 6 weeks a new routine or habit gets easier because your mind and body responds positively to it, and adapt it as a new pattern for your life. Helpful, that!
So, my question to you at the start of this year is, what are you going to go after? What are you aiming at this year?
For me, I am going big, I want to make sure I am fully alive. Sounds like an odd thing to say, because I amfully alive, heart beating and breathing properly. Biologically, I am fully alive but, like so many men, it is easy to live a life of quiet desperation. We get lost in past failures, disappointments, the choices that turned sour in our hands or just a grinding sense of ‘What if?’
I heard it said recently that ‘If you wake up tomorrow for breakfast, know that about a quarter of million people didn’t.’
Death isn’t the focus of this article to kick start your year on a high, but it is essential in setting and calibrating our lives. Let me explain. I have this stupidly expensive aftershave, and for a while I kept it on the shelf, a special occasion scent. Then I had this moment: ‘Isn’t every day a special occasion? I am alive!’ I have the most amazing gift given to me right now, I am alive. So, get that spray on and enjoy it.
Tomorrow’s breakfast might go cold, and you may not see it. Knowing that has to shape how we live and act right now.
As a Christian, this reality impacts me. I have made a choice to trust Jesus, to pray and read my Bible. I have made a choice to follow Jesus’ teaching, His example and the narrow path He calls us onto. It isn’t easy, but I am on that path because the Bible is full of moments, lives and men who really found what it meant to be fully alive. I want some of that in my life, not some dry and dusty religion that fails to grip my heart and life, but an active, passion-filled life, trusting the King.
