Make the Needed Change

By: Joanne Viola

 

We are almost at the middle of the first month of this new year and new decade. Many of us would have made resolutions and goals. But did you know …

• 4 out of 10 adults will make at least one resolution for the new year
• at the end of the 1st week, about 75% of people will have kept their resolution
• at the end of the 2nd week, about 70% are still maintaining their resolution
• after a month, about 64% are still sticking to it
• after 6 months about 46% are still at it

        (*statistics were gathered from various sites)

This means that about 60% of adults make resolutions and about 9% maintain them successfully.

These statistics show us how hard it is to be consistently determined. Yet many will look back at the old year and will have wished things had been different. We wish we had done more, wasted less, met some goals, lost that weight, paid off those bills, broken that habit, and read our Bibles more.

For the new year to look differently from the old year, we need to do something – we need to start. And it is not too late to start.

“Today when you hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts as Israel did when they rebelled.” 
(Hebrews 3:15 NLT).

God speaks to us today. In the here and now. When we put off what He is telling us to do, it is going to cost us something – our very hearts. They harden.

We will not ever start if we keep putting it off. We become casual towards achieving the goal and lazy in our relationship with Him.

So what are we to do?

• Pick a devotional and start reading your Bible. Today.
• Pick a reading plan and achieve your goal of being in the Word. Today.

Steve Jobs passed away at a relatively young age. By all standards, he achieved much in his lifetime. He has been quoted as saying:

“For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.“

Are there changes in your life which you have been putting off? 
Begin to make the needed changes,
today.

Photo by Carolyn V on Unsplash