Happy New Year!

Having worked in a health club several years, and having sold health/weight loss supplements as a home business, I know all about New Years resolutions, particularly pertaining to weight loss. I started out with optimism for my clients...thinking that if people just TRY really hard, and have the right tools they will achieve their goals. This moved to cynicism, when many fall off the wagon, or only follow the plan part way, and can't understand why they don't see results.

Personally, I've been down the same road, and I'm guessing most of you have too. But being cynical is not a great place to stay...so let's move on to the next phase, Peace through resting in God's strength. Let me share some of my favorite verses to ponder over: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 10That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." 2 Cor 12 9-10.

I have come from a family of high achiever types, and it's a difficult thing to accept your own weaknesses, and in fact look at them as a blessing, as Paul does. It's much more intuitive to come up with some 5 step plan to success, and just dig in harder than before. But where is there room for Christ in that plan? I do believe in change, and think there are some successful strategies that can help, but what I have learned is that any plan must first start with simply falling on the grace of God, accepting my own inadequate sin nature, and asking for the strength I do not possess on my own. That way "Christ's power may rest on me." I don't think I have to tell you whether my own power or Christ's power is the better approach!

Hope that gives you something to think about, as we look to the new year. I'm praying for a 2009 full of growth and renewal, and may GOD get the glory, and may we do all things through HIS power!

~Becky