Resolutions: Realizing Your Full Potential

December 30, 2018

Resolutions: Realizing Your Full Potential

With the last few days of the year already here, 2018 is quickly coming to a close. As we wonder at how the year seemed to pass by so quickly, many of us are reflecting on all of the things we had intended to do in 2018.  While we reflect, we make our New Year's resolutions, vowing to make better use of 2019. Setting New Year's resolutions is an interesting tradition. There is something about the end of a year and the beginning of a new year that sets our minds' goals and aspirations.  Perhaps it's part of the mild grieving process we experience as we recognize that all our unrealized good intentions for 2018 are just out of time.  Maybe it's the opportunity that a new year brings for a fresh start with 365 days ripe with potential.  Both of these are indeed influences in the tradition of setting New Year's resolutions.

 

Still, there seems to me to be a deeper, more significant motivation in our New Year's resolutions.  Somewhere within each of us, there is a sense that there is some untapped potential we have not yet realized in our life.  Whether we act upon this sense or not, most of us want to be better people next year than we are today. New Year's resolutions appeal to this inner desire as they are full of possibility and the best of intentions toward growth. They promise to lead us to realize our fullest potential. Unfortunately, many New Year's resolutions go unmet as resolve and dedication wane in the early months of the new year. Like many of you, I have New Year's resolutions for 2018 that I failed to accomplish as my resolve just fizzled out. Also like many of you, I too have new New Year's resolutions for 2019. So how are we to ensure that we realize our full potential in 2019 when so many of us fail to complete our New Year's resolutions? In Colossians, Paul addresses similar goals and aspirations providing us with a plan that can indeed lead us to realize our fullest potential.