New Year’s Resolutions (Karla Estrada)

This is about the time I reflect back and see what I need to change for the next year. It usually includes: do more exercise, eat healthier, call my old friend (and the list goes on)… just to forget about them two months later and if I’m lucky, I’ll remember them in the fall and make another attempt to accomplish them.
This week I was reminded of a passage I have read time and time again this past year but some how this time it carried another meaning. In Philippians 3, Paul talks about not having confidence in the flesh and pressing on towards the goal. Now, I don’t know about you, but if anyone is going to boast about where they come from, who they are and how much they know is Paul the man himself who has all the rights to do this. Yet, he doesn’t. He evens considers all he has and all he knows as “rubbish”. As I read verses 12-14, I get a glimpse of what Paul was trying to say. The man who by far did more for God was telling me that he is not perfect and he doesn’t have it all together (most of the time I think he does!). Not only that; but to forget what is behind! He can’t mean everything! YES! To forget my failures and victories, all the things I have achieved, all that I have learned so I can have both hands free to take hold of what Christ has call me to. I stopped to think of the work this will take just to read his next choice of word: “straining”. If you have done any physical labor or sports you know very well the meaning of this word: “discipline” and “hard work”. Paul is very clear on this when he talks with Timothy (2 Tim. 2:3-6). I then realized that this has become a foreign term for most us who live in this “information at your fingertips”, “get it now”, “super speed” & “comfortable” world. Paul didn’t make any mistakes in saying this. He knew very well that discipline and letting go of the past is what would press him forward to reach for the goal to which God called Him to.
So, as you think about your New Year’s resolution, I pray that you let go of all that is “behind” you, what ever your successes and failures have been. Let go of the things you think you know or don’t know and step into this New Year with “two free hands” and “strain forward towards the goal” (this means that sometimes it takes work!) so you can take hold of all the new promises God has for you. As for me, my resolution will be to put into practice what Paul was talking about in Phil. 3:12-14.