Goals for 2020

New Year's resolutions? Who takes time for that? Certainly not me, not ever. But every so often, I do set some unofficial, personal goals.

Here are ten of my current goals, in no particular order:

1.    Walk at least half an hour each day, and at least 10,000 steps a day, four or five days a week, weather permitting.

2.    Eat mostly healthy foods.

3.    Spend quality time with my friends and family.

4.    Reach out to the people I meet, especially those who need love, encouragement, and support.

5.    Finish writing my untitled mental health handbook, targeted at people who work with kids with mental health disorders, and submit it for publication.

6.    Submit my newest children's book for publication.

7.    Continue to write, edit, and record Christian songs.

8.    Keep writing this blog, and get back on track to write a new post once a week.

9.    Finish cleaning up and remodeling our basement, so we can have a usable theater/exercise/game room to accommodate our growing teenager and his friends, as well as the ever-increasing blessings we call  "grandchildren."

10. Read a segment of The One Year Bible each day.

These goals don't differ a whole lot from last year's objectives. For the most part, I'm just continuing what has already been started. Some of these goals will be harder to meet than others, but such is life: we muddle through the best we can, trusting God to be with us every step of the way, whether times are good or bad.

If I could suggest which of these items would be the most valuable for you to do, too, I would encourage you to get outside and walk, not just for the exercise, but so you can experience the beauty of God's creation each day, and even spend some time communicating with our Creator, praying as you walk.

More than that, though, I wish you could all get in the habit of reading God's instruction book, the Bible, every day. It only takes a few minutes, but they will be the most enlightening minutes of your day.

I've been reading the Bible regularly since I was a young teen. I've read all of the New Testament straight through several times, and I've read all of the Old Testament, too, at one time or another, but last year marked the first time I used The One Year Bible as a tool to help me finish the entire Bible in the course of just one year.

I expected to have a hard time keeping up with the discipline needed to sit down and read the four daily assigned readings--one from the Old Testament, one from the New Testament, and one each from Psalms and Proverbs. But, I started out asking God to give me a sense of excited anticipation each day, and he certainly didn't fail me. I suppose it's a little like asking for wisdom or faith--when we ask for the things he wants for us anyway, God readily gives us those things, in abundance.

Don't be like the kids I know who assume that they already understand everything about the stories in the Bible, because they have been hearing them their whole lives in Sunday School, Children's Church, VBS, and Awana. It's hard to convince them, and many adults, that the Bible contains so much more than the sanitized Bible stories of our youth. Do you realize how much is left out of the Sunday School lessons we think we know so well, for the sake of sheltering our children from the sinful behavior that fills the Old Testament? If we don't understand how much we sin--and I have recently come to believe that we all sin much more than we know--how will we ever be able to recognize our need for a Savior?

Reading the Bible has never been simpler. You can choose from hundreds of easy-to-understand translations; I am currently using the large print, New Living Translation of The One Year Bible. If you have a Bible app, such as YouVersion, on your phone or computer, you can even listen to someone read it to you.

I've found that referring to a Bible commentary, as I read the daily selections, has increased my level of understanding, and helped me to see the emerging patterns that wind their way through the entire Bible. I have finally realized that the Bible is really just one, interconnected story about God's sinful, chosen people, and the plan he made, from the very beginning, to provide a miraculous solution to the sin problem that permeates our world and the people in it. I am astounded anew at God's patience, mercy, and love for every one of the people he made, including you and me.

So, Happy New Year! I hope your goals for 2020 include some time with God, and I pray that he will give you perfect "2020" vision, so you can see him more clearly than ever in the coming year.

I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. Ephesians 1:16-21 (NIV)