Taking Time to Appreciate the New Years Wrinkles

It's funny the difference a day can make. Yesterday we were looking back on the previous year, the highs and lows and the events that made up 2012. I was an eventful year! Great and terrible things happened. Things we hope to remember for all times and other things that we hope the New Year washes from our memories. Beyond so many other things though, we look to the New Year to refresh our hearts and bring the renewed hope which seems to accompanies a new calendar!

Looking forward is so different than looking back! When we look back we see all the challenges and problems. Hind sight is considered 20/20 though I would hesitate on that idea. It's not always as clear as we would want nor is it always as easy to understand as some would want us to think. One thing is for sure...the year has passed and the events of our lives have happened (whatever they may have been) and the year and it's events are behind us now (for the most part). Now with a bit of excitement and possibly concern, we look toward the new year and all the possibilities that lay before us!

So the challenge again at the start of this new year is to anticipate the challenges and take advantage of the possibilities which inevitably will show themselves. But without some type of planning we may wind up seeing the possibilities but to late to take advantage of them. So the key is looking forward with vision and wisdom.

Our lives go in many directions and at a speed where we simply hold on and wait for it to slow down. This year will be lived through vision of where we need to be by 2014. And we need to aim high when we consider our vision for the new year. It puts perspective on events that happen and keep up focused of the placed we want to be.

I think English Bulldogs are about the cutest little puppies a person will ever see! What helps a great deal though is to know what this little puppy will be like when it grows up! Buying a Bulldog puppy means you will get a grown up Bulldog in a couple years, not a Rottweiler! And that's perhaps the refining point of developing clear and functional vision....to understand the possibilities of what can happen and not the unattainable fantasy of a make believe dream. We should develop a vision to declare what we are when we are the best we can be! It becomes disheartening to work at developing a vision that reveals what I can be if I were Michael Jordan or Peyton Manning, or Billy Graham for that matter because I am not and never will be them. 

I can only become the best me I can be. The church can only become the best Blomkest Baptist Church it can be! With clear and Godly vision, the best we can be will be far more impressive than we think! These are days we will remember!