thoughts about a new year

in thinking about the new year, i have to look back on last year. i have to ask myself what were the good moments i had and what were the failures i had. many things come to mind as i try to reflect-like the time when we cooked out on the square and gave food away for free, but then i am reminded of my opportunity to help a homeless man in front of applebees but by the time i was convinced to do it he was already gone. or the time that we collected and passed out school supplies to anyone who could use them-or the time we gave out hats and gloves, but then my memory goes to other moments like passing by someone hitchhiking on the road, or the times that i blew it with my own son by forgetting about his basketball games and not taking him only to see that very disapointed look on his little face.

overall, i have to say i think that last year was a good year-i tried to follow god everywhere he led me. i failed many times but i feel like i gave a good effort (can i say that?). this past year will leave many lasting memories in my life and my families life, hopefully in the other believers who were a part of many of these things, and more importantly the people we were able to touch with kindness. but what would god say about how last year went (about me and my faithfulness or lack of faithfulness)? would he consider me to have been doing what he wanted me to do-would he considered me to be wasting precious time-would he have been pleased with our efforts-or would he be disappointed in what we have tried to do? (these are questions that i can't answer and won't find out until later).

the thing is i really thought that by doing some of these things people would be attracted to god and possibly even drawn to our group of believers but that just hasn't happened (people may have come to god through our efforts but i don't know about it yet, not that god is supposed to let me know, it would just be encouraging). we have to ask ourselves what do we want to try to do this coming year for god's kingdom-what goals do we want to set-can you even set goals while in the ministry or are we just to love people like jesus and let him work out the rest? maybe the problem we have is because we are too results oriented instead of just doing what god says-and leaving the end results up to him. i know people would argue that in order to really follow god you should be fruitful (which they consder to be numerical gain in a church group), but the type of fruit mentioned in the bible is the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and sef-control. these are characteristics that can be produced in people-it says nothing about adding new people (though that would be nice), it just talks about adding these things in our own lives and the people we do have in our groups lives.

so for goals this year, (we will have a gathering to determine what we want to do next year, but these are just my thoughts), i think i am going to focus on living in the power of the holy spirit, attaining the fruits of the spirit, loving god and loving my neighbor (not so we can add more people to the church, just because jesus says so). i think i will lead my church in this direction also, to quit worrying about what the world thinks is a successful church and worry about what jesus said was important. we will leave the results on earth up to him-we will quit worrying about them.

what are your thoughts?? what are you going to do in 2009?