Let me be the 50th person to wish you a, “Happy New Year.” How is 2012 going so far? Did you begin by celebrating with family and friends? Did you last long enough to see that big ball drop in Time’s Square? And how many times did you think, “I’m so glad that I’m not there”? That thought crosses my mind every time I watch all of those brave (crazy?) souls huddled way too close together and yet still way too cold.
Did you make any New Years’ resolutions? How many have you broken so far? None? Good for you. I was reading today about the most popular New Year’s Resolutions among Americans. See if one of yours is on this list.
- Lose Weight
- Pay Off Debt
- Save Money
- Get a Better Job
- Get a Better Education
- Drink Less Alcohol
- Quit Smoking
- Reduce Stress
- Take a Trip
- Volunteer to Help Others
How many of your resolutions/goals for 2012 have to do with prioritizing and acting upon what should be most important in your life?
Tim Sanders—former chief solutions officer at Yahoo shares the following thought about establishing priorities that you might find interesting and helpful. He writes,
“Take your life and all the things that you think are important, and put them in one of three categories. These three categories are represented by three items: glass, metal, and rubber.
The things that are made of rubber, when you drop them, will bounce back. Nothing really happens when these kinds of things get dropped. So, for instance (and I enjoy sporting events, so don't take me wrong here), if I miss a Seahawks' game, my life will bounce along real fine. It doesn't change anything and nothing is lost—my missing a game or a season of football will not alter my marriage or my spiritual life. I can take 'em or leave 'em.
Things that are made of metal, when they get dropped, create a lot of noise. But you can recover from the drop. You miss a meeting at work, you can get the cliff notes. Or if you forget to balance your checkbook and lose track of how much you have in your account, and the bank notifies you that you have been spending more than you have—that's going to create a little bit of noise in your life, but you can recover from it.
Then there are things made of glass. And when you drop one of these, it will shatter into pieces and never be the same. Even though you can piece it back together, it will still be missing some pieces. It certainly won't look the same, and I doubt that you could actually fill it up with water; because the consequences of it being broken will forever affect how it's used.
The thing is, you're the only person who knows what those things are that you can't afford to drop. More than likely, they have a lot to do with your relationships. Your marriage, your family, and your friends” (Tim Sanders, www.sanderssays.typepad.com / 8-25-06).
Sanders missed the most important relationship of all, didn’t he? How am I doing in my relationship with God? Really, we would all do well just to write one goal: Love God. Augustine summed it up well when he said, “Love God and do whatever you want.” Wise words, but easier said than done.
I’ve rediscovered one very difficult lesson in the last few months: Those things that scream loudest for my attention are rarely the things that are most important. There can be so many issues, circumstances and even people who seem to be tugging at our coattails, demanding immediate action. But I’ve noticed time and again that God – who is THE most important Person in the universe - doesn’t raise His voice to get hold of us. In fact, Elijah learned that God isn’t in the fireworks of our life; He’s in the still small voice – the quiet things that often get overlooked.
What will it mean for you to pay more attention to God this year? Take some time in the next few days to seek God’s face, asking Him to reveal the ways that you can love Him more deeply.
Let’s make loving God our top priority this year…and then do whatever we want,
Mike