New Year's resolutions for your faith

There is a sense, though not shared in chapter and verse, when you read through the Bible that God is pro New Year's resolutions.

Though, I am not convinced that he would use the term resolution.

Perhaps He would use the term goals. Looking at the way things are currently and holding them up to what they could be and should be, then plotting a way to move them in that direction.

He most certainly uses the term repentance. To see where you are currently, where God is, and turn from there to Him.

Looking ahead to 2013 I have to ask, "How would God approach the new year? What things would He write down to move toward at the turn of the calendar?"

There are many things that could be added to this list, but let's start with two.

First, your life was made to matter.

God could have made a very cardboard and bland world and universe for us to live in. He could have told Adam, "Sit back, relax, do nothing all the days of your life." But He didn't. God created us to do something. To stretch ourselves. To push into new boundaries for His glory. To look at the face of the mountain and say, "I will climb that because it is there."

Your life was made to matter. It matters most in the little ways of every day. You may have big things that you get to be a part of. But it's the little things that propel a great life.

Second, impact is measured by what you give, not what you consume.

I love the story of the widow who goes to worship and drops in her penny. Everyone around her is making a huge deal of the big sums of money that they give. She quietly walks up, places her penny and walks away.

Jesus, observing what happens, tells the apostles with him that she gave more than all of them. It wasn't the amount she gave that impressed Jesus. It was the way in which she gave it. Out of her poverty, out of her heart. The others gave out of obligation and to be noticed. She gave because she understood that in God's eyes, life is measured more by how you give than what you consume.

Heading into 2013 let me encourage you to add these two things to your "new me" list: 1) Recognize every day that God made you to matter. He made you to make a difference somewhere, somehow. 2) What you give, how you open your life up to others, is more fulfilling and more worshipful than what you consume.

Rob Hurtgen is a husband, father, minister and writer. Read more from him at www.robhurtgen.wordpress.com.