I dislike New Year’s resolutions. I used to make lofty promises concerning self-improvements, career goals, etc. However, by the end of the first week in January I had broken every resolution I had made less than a week before. So, instead of improvements based on my resolutions, I spent the next 11 months feeling like a failure. In order not to be a complete failure, I would merely fail to make resolutions.
But this year, I was made to feel like a failure by a good friend who bragged about her New Year’s resolutions.
She had bought herself one of those fancy blank books and had resolved to keep a “Journal of Thanks and Praise.” She was so excited about it that she said she actually started keeping her journal in November! Her enthusiasm was contagious.
So, thanks to my friend, June, I decided I was going to make a New Year’s resolution.
The problem is — what should I resolve? Should I keep a journal like hers? Nope, I have boxes and boxes of journals that I have instructed my family to bury with me. Should I resolve to do something? Become something? Improve something? Make something? There were the usual resolutions people make: lose weight, exercise more, pray more, read the Bible more, memorize more Scripture, etc. But I tell myself almost every day I’m going to do those things, so I knew I would not be able to keep those resolutions.
No, since I hadn’t made a New Year’s resolution in many a new year, I wanted my resolution to be different. As in a spectacularly awesome resolution that would not be difficult to keep and would make all my friends, even June, really, really jealous. So I thought and thought and thought until I came up with absolutely nothing.
Then it hit me: this year, I want to be contagious!
I want my joy to be contagious.
You know joy, don’t you? Not happiness, for our happiness comes from emotions and circumstances. But joy comes from knowing Jesus, and knowing who and what I am in Jesus.
I am a child of the King, ransomed and saved by Jesus Christ, my personal Savior and Lord. I want that joy to be so apparent in my life that others want to “catch” joy just by being around me.
I want my love for Jesus to be contagious.
Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is my Rock and my Redeemer. He is my life’s Cornerstone and my Counselor. He’s my Alpha and Omega, my One and Only.
I want Jesus to be so apparent in my life that others want to “catch” Jesus just by being around me.
So, this year, I hope that my joy and my Jesus are contagious.
And one more resolution: Knowing that when I was born, I cried and my family rejoiced, I want to live my life in such a manner that when I die, my family will cry and I will rejoice.
Want to “catch” that resolution, too?
Verna Davis, author and speaker, writes in Frankton. She can be reached at Vrdspeaks@yahoo.com.
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Verna Davis John P. Cleary
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Verna Davis: Make a resolution to be contagious
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