David Ralph

A New Metric

I read this quote this morning from Oswald Chambers - 

“The lasting value of our public service for God is measured by the depth of the intimacy of our private time of fellowship and oneness with Him.”  

  Too often those of us who are teachers and leaders are guilty of measuring the value of our public ministry by so many other metrics – the number of people, the size of our buildings, how big our budget is, the number of email we receive after a message, etc.  I wonder if at the end of my ministry – maybe the end of my life – if the words in my private devotional journals will have been near as many as the words I spoke as a leader and teacher.  Would there be depth in those private words?  Would they reveal a deep intimate relationship with Jesus?  Would they reflect a oneness?  A sense of fellowship?   Jesus said that if we “abide with him and he abides with us that we would bear much fruit – apart from that kind of intimacy, we really do nothing of value.”   Maybe it is time to add a new metric to our ministry life – how much time did I spend and how deep were those times I spent in private, alone, with Jesus.

Resolutions

On the first day of any new year the making of resolutions is pretty common.  We look back over the previous year and we discern things that need to be changed.  It might be to lose a few pounds.  It might be to eat better, get more rest, be better in some kind of a relationship, stop this or stop that.  One of the keys to making a resolution last more than the first six weeks (which stats say is the average time before we give up on a resolution) is to write it down and to review it each day.  It is taking time at the beginning of each day to remind ourselves of what we resolved to do and to close out each day reviewing how we did.  I have done this on a consistant basis since my sabbatical and I can from personal experience tell you that it does work.  I have made progress in certain areas of my life that I have tried to do before but with a whole lot less success. 

The first key aspect of making and keeping a resolution has everything to do with perseverence and persistance. It is creating a simple system that reminds you on a daily (even hourly) basis of the desire for change that you have and it is a system that tracks your progress and allows you to make any corrections that need to be made. 

The second key in making and keeping a resolution is to have a team of people who hold you accountable regarding the changes that you want to make.  It is difficult to make changes all by yourself.  It takes a little team of people who care for you and want the best for you who will both encourage and exhort you along the journey.

The final key in making and keeping a resolution is to rely on the power of the Holy Spirit to help you make the changes you desire a reality.  The writer in Hebrews tells us that drawing near to God and his promises, gathering around us a little team of those who will spur us on to love and good deeds and making regular connection with a faith community are essential to perservering and persisting and enduring including the resolutional changes that we want to make.

It won’t matter what is on your list.  Unless you can keep them, they are only ink on a piece of paper that will leave you frustrated unless you  find a system of reminder and review, unless you find a team of people to help you keep them and unless you rely on God’s power to change.

So what’s on your list?  Will you take the steps needed to giving you a better chance of keeping the resolutions that you have made this year.

Have a happy and blessed and joyous New Year.