New Year

New Year's Resolutions.  I'm finally talking about them in February.  Have you been asked if you made any yet?  I think I've been asked two or three times and I had to admit that I hadn't made any.  It seems like people are either passionately for them or aggressively against them.  I wouldn't say that I fit either of the extremes but I would tend toward the latter.  I'm not against making new year's resolutions by any means.  It's good to sit back and evaluate where you are at and where you'd like to be.

It's been discussed before but the main reason I typically don't make them is because after January I tend to forget about them.  The hype ends in February and you get back into the normal, daily routine of life.  

I found some statistics about new year's resolutions on the ole internet.  

45% of American's usually make them.

8% of American's are successful in achieving them.  

But, "People who explicitly make resolutions are 10 times more likely to attain their goals than people who don't explicitly make resolutions."

(All of my info was found from www.statisticbrain.com).

Why do we make resolutions at all?

Hopefully, for a believer, the ultimate purpose is to grow in godliness and glorify God.

So, I finally came up with one.  Just one.  I think one single resolution will help me actually attain it and put things in focus.  And it's a resolution that will help make all other pursuits possible and bring about real change and that is to be faithful in prayer.

I read a really helpful devotional by Elizabeth Elliot this morning about prayer.  I'll copy some of it here:

"'If you, bad as you are, know how to give your children what is good for them, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask Him?' (Matt. 7:11, NEB).  Are you often tempted as I am to doubt the effectiveness of prayer?  But Jesus prayed.  He told us to pray.  We can be sure that the answer will come, and it will be good...Prayer is a weapon.  Paul speaks of the 'weapons we wield' in 2 Cor. 10:4-5.  They are 'not merely human, but divinely potent to demolish strongholds' (NEB)...The Destroyer himself, [urges] me to quit using the weapon he fears so intensely."  

From Keep A Quiet Heart

Prayer is effective.  God is faithful to answer.  He tells us to pray.  And Satan fears it.  

I finished out the last few months of 2014 spending much more time in the Word but by the time my hour or so was up every morning before I needed to get Shirley out of bed, I hadn't spend more than about a minute or two praying to God.  This morning I decided to get out my journal and write down things to pray for using the old A.C.T.S. method (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication) and then I spend some time praying through those things. What a difference it makes spending time talking to our God!

It's actually been about a week since I started this post.  Things are still going well.  (I would hope so after only a week.)  Isn't it amazing that God wants to hear from us?  And that He actually listens to us and answers our prayer??  The God of the universe!  That in itself should convict us and lead us to prayer.  Do any of you readers out there have any little things that help you to be faithful in prayer?  I'd love to hear!