As the clock neared midnight December 31st, a guy
posted on Facebook, “I need to
lose twenty-five pounds in the next ten minutes.” Obviously he will have to rollover his 2012 resolutions into
2013.
If you are like me, everyday is New Year’s Day. Every morning I wake telling myself
that I’m not going to eat as much today, need to exercise in the afternoon,
read more, pray more. Some days
are good, others are a complete catastrophe, but, like Groundhog Day, I wake up
the next morning with the same thoughts.
Need to pray better today, need to read my Bible, need to avoid
food. But how does one
succeed with desired goals, resolved to improve mentally, spiritually and
physically?
Last week my eighty-eight year old mom was involved in a freak
accident. She got knocked down and
run over by a car that was suppose to be in park. Somehow the vehicle began to slowly roll down an incline and
in the end my mom received a thirteen-inch gash on her right leg, multiple
lacerations, a fractured finger and bruised from top to bottom. After three days in the hospital, my
brothers and myself have been taking turns spending the night at her house
caring for her.
Watching a football game at her house I heard mom talking in
the other room. I put the TV on
mute and listened. Mom was
praying. I eavesdropped for a while,
listening to her pray, by name, for her granddaughters and great-grandchildren. The next morning sitting in her chair
before she woke up I picked up her Bible and read some of the scripture verses
she had marked. Later that
afternoon she gave me a check to deposit for a mission cause she supports and I
saw, from her shaky hand, another check she had written for the Billy Graham
Association. Though mom is unable
to go to church these days, she still maintains giving her “tithe.”
It dawned on me this week that the way one fulfills their
resolutions day-after-day, year-after-year, is to pay attention to the
fundamentals. My mom does not have
an exciting life. Some would even
consider it boring. She does not
have a public ministry. She is
bound to her house, only able to get out if someone picks her up and takes her
out. Yet, my mom has learned the
success of life, by paying attention to the fundamentals of life; prayer, Bible
study and giving to God what meager things she has.
Oswald Chambers writes in My Utmost for His Highest, “All our promises and resolutions end in
denial because we have no power to accomplish them.” The only way anyone can have a fulfilled life is in
Christ. It is not our intentions
that matter, but, like my mom, pay attention to the fundamentals each day.
