New Year's Resolutions

Only 288 days to go! Whoop, whoop. Less than 10 months until you become Mr. and Mrs. Doesn't sound so far away any more! Happening this year, baby! 2015! An exciting year ahead between your wedding and Anton's college graduation. (Also the year your Daddy and I turn 50, but we won't go there yet). We are getting so excited! Praying this whole year is a happy one filled with gobs of blessings for everyone.

Your Daddy and I are kicking off this new year in New Orleans ... newspaper duty calls: Sugar Bowl with Alabama and Ohio State. It is exciting to see all the fans here celebrating the start of 2015. So many amazing things to see and do and taste in this wild city. A bunch to hide your eyes and ears from as well. That's where using Scripture and God as a filter come in.

If there was anything we would wish for you in 2015, that would be it. That everything you do be filtered by the grace of God. Every decision you make, every word you speak, every thing you watch or read, every action you both take, that you use the best-selling book of all time and the Creator who wrote it to guide your steps. Friends told me recently that they as a couple are reading through the Bible together during 2015. While both have read through the Bible independently before several times, this is the first time they have read it through together. A sweet time of togetherness, devotion, study and spiritual growth. Imagine facing every day together after a morning of Scripture time. What a perfect plumb line they will have to set their day by.

Set yourself some goals this year, including spiritual ones. Back in November we talked about ..spiritual measurement. Make good on growing ever closer to our Father. Read the Word every day. Pray. Take a new study. Get involved in a small group. While you are at it, stretch yourself creatively, learn something new, volunteer in some aspect, do random acts of kindness, spend time with God just to be with Him, and make every effort to love each other faithfully and  preciously in word and deed.

Know that we are praying for you in this new year. That you grow every more in love and ever closer to the One who brought you together. We love you both. Happy, healthy, blessed 2015!

Discussion: What are your individual goals for this year? What are your goals as a couple? What is something you have always wanted to do or learn that is reachable this year? What can you do this year to grow spiritually?

Prayer: Father we dedicate this year entirely to you. We pray your Holy Spirit and Word guide us. Help us be wise in our decision making and quick to love your children. In the name of the One to whom every knee will bow, Amen.

Spiritual Measurement

About this time every year, I write our family Christmas newsletter. I have been writing one since the mid-90s to tell our family and friends far from us what the Zs have been up to all year. Job changes, relocations, successes, challenges, milestones ... it's all in there. It is almost obsolete for most, since folks on Facebook can keep up with us all year, but it's still a fun microcosm of our year as a family. As we look back on old ones, we can see where we've been and how far we've come.

There is another sort of year end evaluation I like to do, too. It's a Spiritual Measurement. Every year, I had my Sunday School kids fill one out and would mail their last years answers to them in the New Year. The questions include:

• Do I spend time reading God’s Word and talking with Him daily?
• Do I look forward to fellowshipping with the Lord?
• What fruit of the Spirit is apparent in my life?
• Do I talk about Jesus with people who don’t know Him?
• How am I using my spiritual gift or gifts?
• Do I have a generous and giving spirit?
• How much better do I know God today than I did a year ago?

I found these questions in an Our Daily Bread deovtional written by Cindy Hess Kasper in 2006. It is interesting to see the answers from year to year to see, again, where we've been and how far we've come.

This may be an exercise the two of you will want to do either together or separately at the end of each year. Sure the newsletter if you want to, but the Spiritual Measurement for sure. And if you see that you are not making progress spiritually in an area, then perhaps focus on that in the new year. 

Discussion: As each other the questions above? What do you need improvement on? Do you plan on writing a newsletter at Christmas?

Prayer: Father, our journey to you includes so much growth and we pray that we can examine that growth yearly to know where are weaknesses that we may continue to improve and become more like Christ and where are strengths are that we may use them to your glory. In Jesus name, Amen.