Each January, Port City Community Church here in Wilmington, North Carolina encourages those attending to pick a word rather than making a New Year’s resolution. For the past four years I have chosen one word as my focus. (In 2012 it was TRUST, in 2013 it was SOMETHING, in 2014 it was NEXT, in 2015 it was PREPARE). My One Word for 2016 is DISCERN.
As our lead Pastor, Mike Ashcraft says, “My One Word is a lens, by which we can see how God is working in us and through us as the year goes along.” You can read more from Mike in his book or check out MyOneWord.org.
New Years and New Year’s resolutions got me thinking about why they work for some and not for others. Why we follow through or why we fail. This lead me to reading several articles on the topic, and I glazed over numerous snippets about The Top Ten Things to Make 2016 Great.
Don’t get me wrong, I did pay attention to a lot of the suggestions and found some of them helpful, like drinking more water and getting a good night’s rest. One of the things I read that struck me more than anything was by Tony Ripa, who writes many of the devotions for Port City Community Church. Tony writes, “If our character changes, our behavior follows suit.”
Those words jumped out at me because in my little world of trying to write and illustrate my first children’s picture book the same thing happens. A character, usually the protagonist, begins on page one with a certain demeanor and attitude but something happens towards the middle of the 32 pages that transforms him/her and changes the ending.
The reason some resolutions stick for some people and not for others is because some people are transformed into different characters and others stay the same throughout the story.
The behavior change is something we can work on but the character change is about who we are and who we are becoming which happens in our hearts. If we try to reach our resolutions on our own, we are only able to address one aspect of it. We need God to work in us to transform our hearts.
Just like a picture book, we start 2016 on page one as a certain type of character. The transformation in the middle of the story can happen and change the ending. (And FYI, the middle of the book is always the most challenging).
As your story develops this year, I am excited by the page turning transformations that God is waiting to work in you and confident that the ending will look different than the beginning.
Go ahead. Pick a word. It could just change your whole story.
Smiles,
Wendy