Especially for our Chinese brothers, here is Nathan’s New Year blog that should have published on the 1st January. \u65b0\u5e74\u5feb\u4e50<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A quick search on the internet reveals that only about 8% of people who make New Year\u2019s resolutions actually manage to keep them and hit their goals. Now, we know that after about 6 weeks a new routine or habit gets easier because your mind and body responds positively to it, and adapt it as a new pattern for your life. Helpful, that!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, my question to you at the start of this year is, what are you going to go after? What are you aiming at this year?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For me, I am going big, I want to make sure I am fully alive. Sounds like an odd thing to say, because I am<\/em>fully alive, heart beating and breathing properly. Biologically, I am fully alive but, like so many men, it is easy to live a life of quiet desperation. We get lost in past failures, disappointments, the choices that turned sour in our hands or just a grinding sense of \u2018What if?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n I heard it said recently that \u2018If you wake up tomorrow for breakfast, know that about a quarter of million people didn\u2019t.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n Death isn\u2019t the focus of this article to kick start your year on a high, but it is essential in setting and calibrating our lives. Let me explain. I have this stupidly expensive aftershave, and for a while I kept it on the shelf, a special occasion scent. Then I had this moment: \u2018Isn\u2019t every day a special occasion? I am alive!\u2019 I have the most amazing gift given to me right now, I am alive. So, get that spray on and enjoy it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tomorrow\u2019s breakfast might go cold, and you may not see it. Knowing that has to shape how we live and act right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a Christian, this reality impacts me. I have made a choice to trust Jesus, to pray and read my Bible. I have made a choice to follow Jesus\u2019 teaching, His example and the narrow path He calls us onto. It isn\u2019t easy, but I am on that path because the Bible is full of moments, lives and men who really found what it meant to be fully alive. I want some of that in my life, not some dry and dusty religion that fails to grip my heart and life, but an active, passion-filled life, trusting the King.<\/p>\n