Worship Notes #8 – Turn the Page

I got out of the habit of writing these short worship notes over the past couple months, but since it is New Years and time for resolutions, one of mine is to maintain more contact with all of our worship servants at New Life. My son Ryan also pointed out that I could do this through a blog rather than old-fashioned email, so I thought I'd give it a try. Maybe others will find these musings of interest as well. We’ll see how long I can keep this resolution going….

Year-end means lots of things. End of accounting periods; end of the tax year; end of the old calendar... new calendars; new resolutions; new clothes (if Santa thought you needed them). The old and the new placed side-by-side like books on a bookshelf. I wonder what it means to God? Does He work around our calendar at all? Does He have a 365-day biorhythm? I'm thinking there has to be something to that since He made the heavens and earth, and He could have made the earth's orbit larger or smaller to create a different number of days in a year. Somehow He knew a 365-day year would be about right for His creation.

Maybe He knew that's as long as we could go without a new start, a new hand of cards, a new set of downs, a clean slate. We make so many mistakes that without the chance to shed some of the guilt and get a do-over every 365 days we'd be carrying around too much extra emotional weight.

So what are you going to do with your new start, your fresh set of downs? What will be different in 2009 than it was in 2008? If something isn't different, then we aren't growing, and if we're not growing then we can't be becoming more like Christ (which is what He wants for us). Here is what I'm going to do different; maybe this gives you some ideas.
1. Do more of what matters and less of what doesn't.
2. Spend more time with God during the week so I'm more ready for worship on Sunday.
3. Pray more.
4. Write more music (my son Adam made a commitment to write one song every month last year… I like that idea… we’ll see if God lays that on my heart this year).
5. Invest more in the people God has placed in my life.
6. Do stuff I've been putting off because it's too hard or no fun (like clean my office).

That's a start. If figure if I look back a year from now and can check off 3 of those 6 items it will be a successful year. What about you? Gotta start somewhere!