That day is drawing nearer. The day when we have promised ourselves we are going to do better. Be better. Some make their vows (and break them!) all year long. Others push them off until the new year. It’s a fresh start, after all, right?
For as long as I can remember it has been my New Year’s resolution to not make New Year’s resolutions. Of course, by making that one I have failed miserably. But this didn’t mean that I didn’t want to improve my station in life. It didn’t mean that I was content with who I was. For me it meant that I’d had it with setting goals and letting myself down. My already pathetically poor self image just couldn’t handle any more failure.
Something changed for me in early 2016, however. I set a big physical goal. I attached that goal to a fundraising goal for a charity. I involved family in friends with my goal. I went public on Facebook, commenting on my progress as the days drew near. The publicity I created for myself helped me power through some rough patches as I trained, and as I participated in the event.
My success in that event, the 2016 Twin Cities Tour de Cure, raising money for diabetes research, served as a springboard for me. Bolstered by that event, and after a bike crash, surgery and recovery, I signed up for an even greater challenge. Ironman Wisconsin 70.3 was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done–physically, mentally and emotionally. The training alone brought me to my knees more than once. While I didn’t perform as well as I had hoped that I would, I finished. Successfully. Within the time limit.
This year I am going to make some New Year’s resolutions. And while the thought still stirs up a little bit of fear, fear of failure, I am resolute in my decision. With regard to this blog, I will continue what I began at the end of October–to post every weekday. I may discontinue some of the weekday themes, however.
What does this have to do with you? I want to challenge you to set goals, and achieve them through persistence. I want to encourage you to make your goals public.
Hebrews 12:1-2 says, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (ESV). We need, not only to create our own witnesses here on earth to encourage us and hold us accountable, but we need to remember that we have an even greater cloud of witnesses cheering us on!
2 Peter 1:3-8 is further encouragement, “seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (NASB).
Persevere!
Skipping Stones 
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