New Year Considerations
by Ramona Cook

The New Year approaches and as we think of new beginnings, we tend to make those flimsy New Year's Resolutions that never seem to materialize.

Recently, a thought came to me of how I might challenge my teenage grandsons to think of the future, to have a vision, to have a plan about where they may like to go with their lives.
Click! The light came on in my head for myself as well.

I am no teenager and it would seem that life is pretty much fixed for me, but that is not entirely true. I continue to live, and in life things change; they change with or without our permission, with or without our selection and direction.
So, the thing I asked my grandson's is this: "If you had the money and everything was available to you to take a trip to the West Coast, what would be the first thing you did?" They hummed a bit and presented ideas such as, "I'd see to it that I had a place to live when I got there."

"Very good," I said, "that would be a necessity, but you cannot get to the designated living quarters until you know how to get to the West Coast, and more specifically, to the address at which you plan to live."
We discussed that to begin one would find a map and calculate the distance and the cost of the trip in money and in time.
Plans must be made to get to anywhere you are going, otherwise you may never get there. True, you will end up somewhere, but is that how you want to live your life?

Will that thought challenge my grandson's to think about planning for education, and work, and all those critical decisions that must be planned? I don't have a clue. I pray that it will. But it challenged me!
I asked myself, "Where do I want to be in the next year, in five years?" Only God knows if He will allow me to succeed, even to live, but I won't get anywhere other than my easy chair if I don't have definite plans and a road map.

Therefore, I have not made New Year's Resolutions; I have mapped a Plan! I wrote on paper, in detail, what I plan to accomplish and what I need to get it done.
For my work, I need to learn a couple more computer programs.
For the small business I would really like to establish from home, I need to sit for a certification exam, and then get the "trip" more finely detailed.
For my writing endeavors I need to assign a time that is fixed, even if not conveniently placed into my schedule.
The list is long and I will not belabor it; however, the fact we find about life is that good things do not fall upon us like an acorn falls from the Oak Tree.

Blessings do fall upon us, but only as we have our feet planted, decidedly walking on the Paths of Right Doing. We are of necessity required to "engage" in the process.
Our well intentioned Resolutions are only air unless we put them into a workable form; a planned form, and then proceed to use the determination and self-discipline that is required to bring about success to whatever degree it materializes for us.

Jesus said that if one is going to build a house that he should sit down and consider the cost, else the house might get half finished and the builder not be able to continue with the project.
I know Jesus meant "money," but there are other costs and commitments that we must also make for our successes in life to come into existence.
The real question is, "Where do you, where do I, want to be at the end of this year?" What about in 5 years?

"Write the vision, make it plain." Habbakuk. 2:2
"Without a VISION, the people perish." (Waste away in the easy chair watching television.) Proverbs 29:18
Pray. Plan. Proceed!

Direction. Detail. Determination. Destination!

Ramona: 12/26/2013
Ramona, Master in Ministry Arts, BA in Biblical Studies, I am an Ordained Minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com-CHRISTIAN WRITERS