Nothing so Passé as a Resolution

It is traditionally at this time of the Year that I tend to look back and also look forward as so many do. Because I am a task driven, goal oriented person I find a natural proclivity towards resolutions. I have even had a reasonable amount of success in achieving some of them. This goes back probably 10 years or more, but I vowed to read at least 1 book a month for the year since it was something I had long neglected. On that resolution I was a bit of an over-achiever and read closer to 20 books in a year. It was also a habit I was able to keep in practice ever since, although not that many on average usually.

It has become a familiar refrain in my last few blog entries, few and far between though they may be, that a book has sparked a thought on which I choose to ponder. This latest one has to do with the topic of resolutions. Again given my tendency to focus on lists, tasks and goal related accomplishments, I have been very challenged with an idea from a book called "Silent Alarm" by John Blumberg. The main character of the book is challenged with the notion to "redefine your dream. Not of what you will do but of who you will become." This has stuck like a splinter in my mind for weeks and seems like an itch I need to relieve. Most of my resolutions or plans - scratch that, all of them - center around things I feel I need to do, should do, must do. But they are always things I do. In doing those things I may change who I am, but only by accident, not by decisive thought or intention.

Then this morning as I read my Bible, with this haunting refrain echoing in the recesses of my thoughts, I read I Corinthians 13:1 - "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal." Suddenly clarity is coming to me like the pieces of a puzzle fitting together. I have wondered over and over how do I focus on who I will become instead of what I will do. I recognize the profoundness of that statement and can appreciate how critical a shift it is to make, but I do not know how to do it. I am not sure that I understand it fully, but as I read that passage from I Corinthians I think that love has a lot to do with it. My predominant motivation is not love. It is usually self promotion, self preservation or some other self initiated intention. I think that I am a gong and a clanging symbol. Maybe a well organized, orderly one, but all that means is that people know what time to expect the useless noise.

So, my journey this year is to Redefine My Dream. Not of what I will do in 2010 but of who I will become. Who is the person that God wants me to be? What qualities mark the man, not what activities. I think the first one is Love.