Sunday, December 31, 2006

New Year's Resolutions

As I do every year on New Year’s Eve, I am prayerfully contemplating what my resolutions for this upcoming year should be. For the past three years I have been influenced greatly by Jonathan Edwards’s 70 resolutions (http://www.reformed.org/documents/Edwards/index.html?mainframe=/documents/Edwards/j_edwards_resolutions.html ) and this year is no different, but since 2006 was a bit of an eye-opening year with regards to the brevity of life, I have decided to include some other random, but very important resolutions. [I have marked the Jonathan Edwards’s resolutions with quotes and “JE” is placed after them] Now my resolution list is actually a tad bit longer than what I have included here, but two resolutions are a little more deeply personal than normal and only my dear mother and closest girlfriends will know of those two specific resolutions. :-)

All right, without further ado, here they are, my 2007 New Year Resolutions!

“BEING SENSIBLE THAT I AM UNABLE TO DO ANYTHING WITHOUT GOD'S HELP, I DO HUMBLY ENTREAT HIM BY HIS GRACE TO ENABLE ME TO KEEP THESE RESOLUTIONS, SO FAR AS THEY ARE AGREEABLE TO HIS WILL, FOR CHRIST' S SAKE.” -Jonathan Edwards
1. Resolved, to pursue God with all I have within me, so that each night as I lay down to go to sleep I can honestly say, 'I am more in love with Christ today than I had been the day before.'
2. “Resolved, To live with all my might while I do live.” -JE
3. “Resolved, Never to lose one moment of time, but to improve it in the most profitable way I possibly can.” -JE
4. Resolved, To continue to immerse myself daily in Scripture with the help of the DJ Bible Reading Plan (
http://www.navpress.com/Assets/PDF/Product/Sample/1576839745.pdf).
5. Resolved, To devote myself to memorizing a minimum of one Bible verse a week, and to meditate and chew on that verse as much as possible throughout the week.
6. Resolved, to sing at the top of my lungs each and every day.
7. Resolved, to learn one new hymn on the piano each and every week.
8. Resolved, to renew my commitment to good health by engaging in some form of cardio a minimum of three times a week, strength training two days a week, as well as monitoring/increasing water intake to prevent kidney stones and allowing myself 7-8 hours of sleep a night, as much as it is in my power to do so.
9. “Resolved, never to say any thing at all against any body, but when it is perfectly agreeable to the highest degree of Christian honor, and of love to mankind, agreeable to the lowest humility, and sense of my own faults and failings, and agreeable to the golden rule; often, when I have said anything against anyone, to bring it to, and try it strictly by the test of this Resolution.” –JE
10. “Resolved, not only to refrain from an air of dislike, fretfulness, and anger in conversation, but to exhibit an air of love, cheerfulness and benignity.” –JE
11. “Resolved, Never to do anything which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life.” -JE
12. “Resolved, whenever I do any conspicuously evil action, to trace it back, till I come to the original cause; and then, both carefully endeavor to do so no more, and to fight and pray with all my might against the original of it.” -JE
13. “Resolved, to strive to my utmost every week to be brought higher in religion” [i.e. my relationship with Christ], “and to a higher exercise of grace, than I was the week before.” –JE
14. “Resolved, never, henceforward, till I die, to act as if I were any way my own, but entirely and altogether God' s.” –JE

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