Resolutions

Some years I make new years resolutions; some years I don’t bother. This year I haven’t sat down and narrowed in on one or two things I’d consider resolutions. Instead I am going to continue on a trajectory I began several months ago–a trajectory leading toward control and simplicity. In a wired, digital world, I’ve too often felt like technology owns me and drives me instead of the other way around. I’ve started to try to regain that sense of control, sometimes scaling back, sometimes changing the way I do things. I hope to continue that through 2009 and beyond.

Here are some things you may wish to do in the new year. I do believe I’ll be doing some of them myself.

• Read the Bible Using a Plan. Justin Taylor offers various ways of going through the Bible in a year.
• Commit to Fasting. John Piper gives advice on how to fast and offers six good reasons to commit to doing it in 2009.
• Pray. Piper dives into the Desiring God archives and offers up good suggestions on how to pray for other people (this year or any year).
• Look Back and Look Forward. Ray Ortlund models this in a reflective blog post.
• Make Resolutions. The Point blog quotes David Jeremiah and gives seven great resolutions you could make for 2009.
• Keep Your Resolutions. Matt Perman gives advice on actually keeping your resolutions.

And through it all, keep your attention focused squarely on Christ. Lydia says this well. “If our 2008 retrospective is focused on ourselves, we are missing the point of discipleship. Cross bearing is about death, not self-improvement. The less we think about ourselves at all, the closer we get to true discipleship. … As we consider our goals and hopes for 2009, how about putting this one at the top: ‘For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain’ (Phil 1:21).”