January 2010 - Focus on Potential, not Flaws, this New Year by Judy Baus

01/01/2010

Vic and I are very excited about this new year 2010. It promises another year of challenges that can help us become better people, and opportunities to help others.

Vic and I are very excited about this new year 2010. It promises another year of challenges that can help us become better people, and opportunities to help others. I hear people say that 2009 was the worst year ever. I encourage them to just look around and they will always find someone that is worse off than they are!

We have entered 2010 because we made it through 2009. That’s quite a feat in itself! I know that financially many of you struggled, but if you are a believer in Christ, struggles can become opportunities to see the hand of God at work on your behalf.

I always look at the New Year as an opportunity to evaluate my life. I want to share some thoughts from others on this topic. Some are humorous but all are thought-provoking.

The new year begins in a snow-storm of white vows.  ~George William Curtis

 

People are so worried about what they eat between Christmas and the New Year, but they really should be worried about what they eat between the New Year and Christmas.  ~Author Unknown

A new oath holds pretty well, but... when it becomes old, frayed, and damaged by a dozen annual re-tryings of its remains, it ceases to be serviceable; any little strain will snap it.  ~Mark Twain speech in New York City, 31 March 1885

We spend January 1st walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives... not looking for flaws, but for potential.  ~Ellen Goodman

Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man.  Benjamin Franklin

As we enter into a new year that will bring new circumstances, challenges, and people, let’s allow these opportunities to help us become better people. I ask myself and I ask you, how are we going to live our lives this new year? The Apostle Paul’s words in his letter to believers in Philippi 2,000 years ago sums it up for me. How about you?

"No, dear brothers and sisters, I am still not all I should be, but I am focusing all my energies on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us up to heaven (Philippians 3:13-14 NLT). "

Make this your best year yet! Happy New Year!