We are now at the first full week of the new year, and it seems as though everything is back on schedule in most of our lives. The beginning of the year always brings about the topic of New Year’s Resolutions. Do you make resolutions each year?
I’ve never really been one to make a resolution, but I have set goals. I used to spend the month of January signing off of social networking in order to really place focus on God. This year is different, though. First, I don’t understand fasting for one month from social networking or tv or whatever else I’ve done in the past in order to spend more time with God. Why? Well, I started thinking that I didn’t like the idea of doing this for only one month. What happens the next 11 months? Why don’t I just make social networking secondary and my relationship with God primary and keep it that way for the whole year? If I need to avoid social networking for a month in order to grow my relationship with God, then I am doing way too much social networking. If it’s necessary to “hibernate” for a month in order to get close with God, then I need to do it forever. There can be a balance between the two. This is something I’ve been working on for the past year.
So this year I will not fast for a month from something nor will I have a resolution that usually is given up by people around March. This year I choose not to set 14 goals for myself for the year 2014. Well, I will have goals in place, but it will not be a New Year’s Resolution/Goal Setting type thing with a pre-set amount of goals.
This year I choose to do something different. Somewhere between Christmas and New Year’s Day I started thinking about my priorities. What are they? I know what I would like for my priorities to be, and I know the “Sunday School response” when asked that question, but I decided I should sit down and look at the past year and what I’ve spent most of my time doing. Then, I had to ask myself if what I’ve spent time doing reflected my priorities. I quickly saw that they didn’t. I needed to make a change, and I need to be intent on adjusting my everyday life to mirror the priorities I have.
I begin this year with a new focus and a new list of priorities. Before making my list, I did not say I want to set X amount of priorities for 2014. I prayed and asked God to help me with a list, and he quickly gave me 4 that all had something in common: Relationships. My heart sank a bit when I looked at the list because I am a very relational person, but I’ve lost that over the years. I’ve been busy or too tired because I’ve been so busy, and I can’t count the times I couldn’t meet with someone who needed to talk because I couldn’t fit it into my schedule. The same happened with my quiet time on too many occasions. My priorities were out of whack.
2014 is going to be a relational year for me. I will place focus on the following priorities:
For me, this list helps me plan out my days trying to make sure these are being placed first – and placed in this order. I need to also not neglect #4, which tends to happen more times than not.
What about you? What are your top priorities right now? Does your daily routine reflect that?
Misty Fitch | Fearfully Made 