Resolutions...

With 2011 behind us and the prospect of a New Year before us, our thoughts turn to resolutions. For many of us, we hope and desire that 2012 will bring happier circumstances. Author, innovation consultant, and speaker Stephen Shapiro, with the help of Opinion Corporation of Princeton, New Jersey, offers the following interesting statistics concerning New Year's resolutions:

• Forty-five percent of Americans usually set New Year's Resolutions; seventeen percent infrequently set resolutions; thirty-eight percent never set resolutions
  
• Eight percent are always successful in achieving their resolutions; nineteen percent achieve their resolutions every other year; forty-nine percent have infrequent success; twenty-four percent (one in four) never succeed and have failed on every resolution every year.
  
• Forty-seven percent set resolutions related to self-improvement or education
  
• Thirty-eight percent set resolutions related to weight
  
• Thirty-four percent set resolutions related to money
  
• Thirty-one percent set resolutions related to relationships • The younger you are, the more likely you are to achieve your resolutions (thirty-nine percent of those in their twenties achieve their resolutions every year or every other year, while less than fifteen percent of those over fifty achieve their resolutions every year or every other year)
  
• The less happy you are, the more likely you are to set New Year's resolutions (this is especially true for those who set money-related resolutions: forty-one percent are not happy; thirty-four percent are moderately happy; twenty-five percent are happy)
  
• There is actually no correlation between happiness and resolution setting/success (people who achieve their resolutions every year are no happier than those who do not set resolutions or who are unsuccessful in achieving them)
  

The last statistic particularly caught my eye. We believe changes in our external circumstances will bring happiness and contentment. The reality is that only God can do this. Only he can create true, lasting change in our lives. He does so by transforming us from the inside out:
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Cor. 5:17)
My encouragement to each of us this coming year is to place our hope in the Lord rather in the things of this world:
“…But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” (Isaiah 40:31)
Have a blessed New Year!
Keep the faith,
Pastor Tony