Here we go again...

Well...Christmas is over. At least the part where the kids tear into the bags and wrapping paper, and the adults get to clean it all up.

Now we get to look forward...to another new year. Here we go again. Except my hope this time is that it's not going to be the same as it has been before.

My hope is that I'll be able to accomplish more this year, I'll be able to love more this year, I'll be able to give more this year. At least that's what I'm hoping.

I'm confessing that I'm hoping that this happens because I'm very human, and I'm very susceptible to failure, and when it comes to climbing higher, and reaching further, I fall short an awful lot more than I succeed. Which is why in 2010, I'm aspiring to only one resolution: to listen with all that I am to God's still small voice in my life.

You may say something like: "I thought that as a pastor this was something that comes naturally without having to work at it." Which then I would reply--"Are you crazy?!" Listening for God's voice doesn't come naturally at all--I have to discipline myself, I have to make time, I have to ignore all 0f the other distractions that fly at me. In a word, I have to work at it.

So hopefully this won't be here we go again this year. I would love to be able to look back a year from now and say something like, "This wasn't ANYTHING like last year!"