New Years Resolutions?

This is an entry I posted on my Xanga... I know there are some of you who don't have Xanga, and thus wouldn't have seen this.  But here it is! :-)

After a greatly wonderful weekend with the Wills Ridge youth, I've been thinking a lot about goals.  What is my long term goal for this year?  I don't want to have a list that I go through and check off when I do it right or when I think I'm "over" a certain weak area in my life. That is rather pointless, because it seems that when I get a certain measure of confidence that I'm over a weak place in my life, the devil throws another monkey wrench to weaken that area again.  So, the list isn't a good way to find ones' goal. 

Another thought would be making a "resolution" for the new year.. but I want my "resolutions" to go beyond this year.  I want them to last the entire length of my life!  If I decide that this year I'm going to be sweet as pie to people I don't like,  what about next year?   It all boils down to this:  What is it that motivates me for change anyway?  Is it Christ or is it a fleshly desire to try and show how "good" I could be?  My desire is for Christ to change me from the inside out, for ETERNITY.  So that brings me back to the question:  What could be classified as my "long-term-eternally-minded-goal"? 

I was reading through an old Journal of mine (which I started the beginning of 2009), and I came accross an entry about a life changing "light bulb" that had been turned on in my heart.  I scrawled along for four or five pages, writing different verses that God had showed me, and they were all geared toward the realization that when I became a child of God, He did away with ALL of the old self, and replaced me with HIS SPIRIT, and if I walk with Christ, giving place to HIS SPIRIT and not the old flesh, He will fill me with His attributes.  His strength.  He will use me for His purpose.  His purpose on earth was to meet the needs of others. 

Ahh... could it be that His goal for my life is to use me to meet the needs of those in my life?  Cha - Ching!  

Sometimes I need to be reminded that God has a long term goal in mind for me, and He wants me to rest in Him, and draw my strength and my needs from Him.  "Oh to be like Thee, Blessed Redeemer." I'm not sure if all that makes much sense... I tend to ramble sometimes! 

~ Susanna