So it’s Monday and everyone is wading back into the fray of life.  But one more venture into some New Year’s talk if we might before the ordinary swallows us whole.

A new year is about a starting new things, but what about finishing what’s been started before you just settle for ‘almost’.

One of my new year’s resolution is to lose the final ten pounds I’ve been carrying. Last year I joined a gym and I lost 15 pounds, but I’ve clung to the final ten like they are good friends. From everything I hear, the final ten is the hardest.

I’ve been thinking that might be true in life as well.  When we’re trying to make progress in an area and God is chipping away at us, making changes, it’s tempting to settle for some change without going for profound change.  Maybe God is working on your anger.  Or you are trying to make progress in being more compassionate.  Or you are almost out of debt. Or you have almost nailed a bad habit. See, I’ve lost enough weight to feel good about what’s happened, but not enough to really finish what I started. It’s that last 10 that takes so much more effort.

Some thoughts:

• You can lose the first ten with some change, but you can only lose the final ten with deep change.
• You might have made peace with the final ten because they’ve been part of you for so long.
• Your whole image of yourself might have to change because you are going from “a lot” to “some” to “none”.  None is a long way from “a lot”.

The difference between losing the final ten and keeping it is surrender.  Maybe it means giving up making peace with the enemy and actually deciding he has to go.  As it is with the body, so it is with our character and spiritual life.  I’m sure God would love to get at the final ten of so much inside of us.  I wonder how different we would be.

What do you find when you’re trying to lose the final ten in any area?  In which area do you need to lose the final ten?  What’s hardest about it?  What scares you most?  What has helped you most?

Happy New Year!  If I had one thing I could wish for you this year in terms of your personal growth, it would be to get into the Bible in a fresh way.

If you do that:

• Your prayer life will grow
• The status quo will get shaken up
• You’ll develop a fresh heart for people who don’t know Christ
• You will begin to apply what you now know to your life in new ways
• You’ll know God more intimately
• You’ll better understand what you believe
• You can test what people tell you (including church leaders) for yourself
• You’ll get more passionate about sharing your faith with people who don’t know Jesus

Here’s my current favourite way to read the Bible:  YouVersion. As you start 2010, you can access one of 20 daily reading plans here.  Pick the one that suits you best.  Some will take you through the entire Bible in a year…others through parts of the Bible.  What I love is that this gives people an easy way to make the Bible part of every day life.  If you’ve never read the Bible before, this could be an easy and do-able first step.

Best yet, you can access YouVersion off your desktop or your smartphone.  My daily bible reading has been off my phone for the last year and I love it.

Hope you find this to be a great new way to encounter God’s Word in a fresh way.

PS.  I’m doing the M’Cheyne reading plan this year.