Ah, a new year. So tempting! I love resolutions, lists, new starts. All those things a whole new year promotes. "This is the year I will become my best me! The rules that I put into place will do this for me. I can keep them ALL this time. By my own sheer will power. What I need is the right rules with just the right catchy wording and new book or pen with which to pursue them!"

Run away!

I cannot head down that path again. It is where I have lived for too long. And it obviously does not work.

As I was reading in Genesis this morning (yes,I just couldn't resist, I had to start at the beginning.) I was struck how God spent the week creating boundaries; for the land and the sea and the sky and the peoples. And they were good. The trouble starts when the woman tacked her own addendum to God's boundaries: "...But God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden (God's boundary), and you must not touch it (woman's boundary), or you will die.'

Why did she do that? Was that her way of saying that God was not enough? That His boundaries and His help to keep them was not sufficient and she would need her own little extra rule in order to measure up? Ah, the law and us legalists that love it!

All that to say, I'm not making any resolutions this year. Go ahead if you want to, you will probably be just fine and they will be helpful as they are intended to be. I have just learned that they are dangerous for me. Instead I'm pondering what I read a few days ago from Hannah Whitehall Smith, "Man's part is to trust; God's part is to work." This is so hard for me, but it is where I want to be. It's so much more restful than my own striving.

And not to contradict everything I just said, but there are two boundaries that I am convicted are God's and I want to keep my focus on. It might just happen to be a new year, and they might look like resolutions...but they're not...:) Because resolutions are life changes I try to make on my own strength. These are things that God calls us all to and I tend to forget. I'm writing them here for a little accountability from that impersonal universe that is the internet and my impressive collection of two followers. :)

1. Memorize scripture daily. I love it when God's word is constantly on my mind and love to see how it weaves its lessons throughout my day. Why do I forget to practice this so quickly?!

2. To say nothing negative to or about my husband, including to myself. This is not going to be a denial of reality, but rather a discipline of focusing on the many blessings I can see through Him and sometimes just shutting my mouth.

There you have it. All those things that are tumbling around in my head on this first day of the new year.