Tag: New Year’s resolutions

New Year’s Resolution or My One Word

We are seven days into 2022, and, if you made a New Year’s resolution, you may have already broken it or you likely will soon. Studies show that most people throw in the towel by the end of January, and 68% don’t last a full month.

My One Word is an alternative to making New Year’s Resolutions. The concept was conceived Mike Ashcraft, senior pastor of Port City Community Church in Wilmington, NC, in 2010.  Mike realized that resolutions are often focused on overcoming past failures–I resolve to lose weight gained or to get out of debt that I have accumulated. He recognized that a better approach is to focus on what God wants to do in your life.

Mike challenged his congregation and blog readers to pray about where God wants to lead them in the coming year.  What is God speaking into your life?  What does God want you to become?  How does God want to use you? What does He want you to learn?

MyOneWord.org
myoneword.org


As you pray and focus on God’s will for you, you will feel God impressing a word into your spirit. This is your One Word for the coming year.  Your Word will be unique to you and where God is leading you. 

I chose my first One Word in 2011; it was Delight.  I also chose a theme Scripture for the year that went along with my word, “Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.” Psalm 37:4  At that time, my husband had been unemployed for two years, with no end in sight. Yet, the Lord promised that if we delighted in Him, He would bless us. I meditated on Psalm 37:4, and God lifted my spirits and increased my faith. And, despite my husband’s continued lack of employment income, God provided for us to celebrate our 30th anniversary that spring with a cruise to Alaska. And, by the end of the year, my husband was back at work with the company that had laid him off nearly three years earlier. Praise the Lord!

Some of my other One Words have been Commitment, Intentional, Rest, and Stewardship.  My year of focusing on stewardship lead me to write a book and start a newsletter. The book and newsletter are designed to help others become responsible stewards of the financial resources God has entrusted to them.

My One Word for 2022 is Praise. I look forward to focusing my energy on praising the Lord throughout each day.  Rather than a single verse, I have selected Psalm 150 as my theme Scripture passage. I am considering choosing a new Psalm of praise for each month, or maybe every week.

I encourage you to pray about God’s desire for your focus in 2022 and to select a word that represents your focus.  To learn more about the My One Word experiment, go to myoneworld.org.

If you have questions about faithful stewardship of your financial resources, please feel free to email me at susan.ball5@aol.com or write your question in the Comment section.  Those who email me will be signed up to receive my free quarterly newsletter with money management tips, encouraging stories, and Scripture inspirations. You may also sign up for the newsletter on the Contact page of this site.

For those desiring a better understanding of Biblical principles of money management, I have written a book Honoring God with Your Money. It is available on Amazon and from Barnes and Noble.

‘My One Word’Experiment for 2011—Closing Thoughts

Last year I heard about the “My One Word” challenge on my local Christian radio station. The idea is that instead of creating a list of resolutions, which are generally broken and long-forgotten by the time February 1st rolls around, we should choose a word to focus on for the year.  The originators of this idea refer to it as an ‘experiment.’  Their web site states that choosing one word “provides clarity by taking all of your big plans for life change and narrowing them down into a single thing. One word focuses on your character and creates a vision for your future.”  For more information on the My One Word experiment, you may go to their web site:  http://myoneword.org/.

For 2011, I chose “Delight” to be my word.  The scripture I focused on was “Delight yourself also in the Lord and He shall give you the desires of your heart.”  Psalm 37:4 (NKJV).  The last three years have been challenging, and at times draining, as we faced the loss of my husband’s job and resulting long-term unemployment and the declining health of his parents.  The pressures of life had weighed heavily on me in 2009 and 2010.  I was determined to not let them steal my joy. 

I did none of the suggested exercises.  My total commitment to the exercise was to write two blogs about my word.  Yet, whenever I found myself getting bogged down by cares of the world, ‘Delight’ would pop into my mind.  Just thinking the word gave me a better perspective.  It is almost impossible to say or think the word ‘Delight’ without feeling a bit ‘delightful.’

As the year drew to a close, I once again read Psalm 37 during my devotions.  This time it was the 23rd verse that caught my attention.  It says, “The steps of the godly are directed by the Lord. He DELIGHTS in every detail of their lives.”   What a joy it brought to my heart to be reminded that God delights in me and in everything that concerns me. 

I can come to God with all the details of my life and He delights in guiding me to making the best decisions and the right choices.  God will direct Steve and me as we continue to search for a new home (see January 17th post).  He will guide me to be the best employee I can be and Steve as he continues to seek direction regarding earning a living.  God cares about our marriage, our health, and our relationships.  He is delighted when I bring these things to Him and He delights in helping me.  And those thoughts fill me with ‘Delight’.

I am still praying and pondering ‘My Word’ for 2012.  I plan to make a decision this week.

Will you participate in the ‘My One Word’challenge this year?  What ‘one word’ will you focus on in 2012?

Delight–Revisited

I read a blog yesterday in which the author discussed his One Word choices for the past three years and how he chose his One Word for this year.  While he remembered clearly his Words for 2008 and 2009, he was unable to recall his One Word for 2010 and had to look it up.  Interestingly, the word he forgot was Enjoy.  Enjoy seems like a pretty easy word to focus on for a year, and I was first amused that he had forgotten it.    Clearly, he was not successful in Enjoying life fully last year.

I was less amused as I read his explanation that he failed to live up to his word because he is more of a Martha than a Mary.  That observation hit close to home.  I am definitely more of a Martha.  For those of you who don’t understand the reference, this Martha was a friend of Jesus and sister to Lazarus and Mary.  When Jesus came to visit, Martha rushed around cooking and serving while Mary sat at Jesus’ feet feasting on his words.  When Martha complained to Jesus that her sister wasn’t helping her, he replied that, “Mary has chosen what is better.” (Luke 10:42)

For those of us who are doers, sitting at the feet of Jesus does not come naturally.  It is easier for us to volunteer to teach Sunday school or spend a day helping with an event than it is to spend an hour in quiet reflection in God’s Word.  We get so busy doing that, like the author of yesterday’s One Word blog, we forget to enjoy our time with God.  We may also have a hard time fully enjoying our families, our friends, our hobbies, and our work.

The dictionary defines Enjoy as “to take pleasure in; to find or experience pleasure.”  Delight is Enjoy compounded:  “a high degree of pleasure or enjoyment; to give great pleasure; to take great pleasure in.”

When I chose Delight as my One Word for the year, I was focused on Delighting in God and recognizing that He Delights in me.  I will now add another focus—remembering to take Delight in my everyday life.  I will try this year to Delight in time spent in God’s word, to Delight in time spent with my family and friends, and to Delight in those I minister to or who minister to me.  I will try to relax more and be fully present in each moment.  I will try to avoid thinking about everything on my to-do list and what I could be accomplishing when I should be focused on those I am spending time with.

Several years ago I read Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World by Joanna Weaver.  This insightful book speaks about having a balance between doing goods works and spending time communing with God.  Both are important if I am going to be the woman God has designed me to be.  Every couple of year I reread Having a Mary Heart to help me keep my focus.  It may be time to read it again.

Have you chosen One Word to focus on in 2011?  How is your One Word helping you to achieve personal growth?

Delight

Monday morning on the way to work I heard the radio DJs discussing the concept of “un-resolutions.”  They explained that a pastor had come up with idea that instead of making a list of resolutions, people should choose a word that represented what they want to work on during the year.  He calls his idea “My One Word, and says the “process provides clarity by taking all of your big plans for life change and narrowing them down into a single thing. One word focuses on your character and creates a vision for your future.”

The concept made a lot of sense, and I decided to join in.   The three DJs shared that they had chosen   Balance, Patience, and Discipline as their words.   Listeners called in to share their words.   All of the words were great and any of them could certainly have applied to my life. 

I was leaning toward Balance, with a goal of balancing different aspects of my life:  prayer and worship, work and family time, and Bible study and service, leisure and writing, etc.  I recently re-read Joanna Weaver’s book Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World.  Joanna wrote about the need to balance sitting at the feet of Jesus with time spent in the kitchen (or serving).  Balance seemed to be the word God was speaking to me.

During my Tuesday morning devotion, I was reading from the Prayer of Jabez devotional.  It focused on Psalm 18:19, “He rescued me because he delighted in me.”  I’m not sure that I ever consciously recognized that God delights in me before I read that.  At noon, I read a blog in which the writer committed to memorize two scriptures each month.  She is starting the year with Psalm 37:3, 4.  And there in verse 4 was that word Delight again. “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.”  I guess God wanted to make sure He got my attention, because Psalm 37:4 appeared in an email devotion I read before going to bed Tuesday night.

After encountering  Delight three times in one day, there was no doubt in my mind about what word to choose. Delight is going to be my One Word for 2011.  I will strive to delight in God and to remember that He delights in me.  Delighting in God will cause me to keep my eyes focused steadfastly on God and off myself.  Reminding myself that God delights in me will encourage me that God always has my best interest at heart and will keep me from getting discouraged when things are going the way I think they should.

What One Word will you focus on in 2011?

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