New Year Resolutions – The Christian Blog

Help! My Resolution to Get Married Never Materialises – Worried Lady

Hello CBG¹,

I am 34 years old, gainfully employed but tired of making new resolutions particularly in the area of settling down. In previous years, I made every conscious effort to get married. I have even written down what I would like to see in my dream man. I go through that list every day and I pray for him, but, it’s been six long unsuccessful years of searching for that ‘dream man.’ I am really tired and have decided not to make any resolutions regarding that subject this year. Since you’ve been preaching about planning and making resolutions, what do you advise I do? Should I still make resolutions and get disappointed or simply relax and see what God will do?
– A very worried lady

CBG’s Response

Hello Miss,

Marriage, as an institution, was created by God and His idea for the majority of people. Not everyone will get married, though, but as long as it is in your heart to be married then it is part of what grace has made available to you. The provisions that are given under grace does not work in isolation but work in tandem with faith. Faith is what causes you to receive the things that grace has already made available. Thus, if you say you made a resolution the previous year to be married and it didn’t materialise so you wouldn’t be deliberate about that subject anymore then I’m afraid you are never going to get married. What you need to do is to keep praying and remain visible to the circle of men in your various levels of socialization. Package yourself nicely while keeping the vision and desire alive. Once the vision and desire exist and as long as it is a provision under grace, then it means it is within your reach and you need to lay hold of it by faith. Faith is dead if it is not accomplished with works. The Bible says that if the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves (Ecclesiastes 11:3). Keep doing what you are doing, remain visible, continue praying and eventually, you’ll find somebody.

Note: In case you were not deliberate about this subject previously, plan to be more visible this year. If your location does not necessarily get you exposed to meeting a man, then you need to go to places where you’ll meet them. Getting to those places will be influenced by your values and the idea of a man who’d like to get married to. It’s good to know you have a perception of who your dream man is but if you find yourself in the wrong places, you’d definitely meet the wrong people. Ensure you go to the right places and are in the right environment so you meet the person you want to be married to. Ruth was deliberate and she met Boaz (Ruth 2).

All the best and remember to invite us to your wedding. ☺️

Do you have any piece of advice to share with this lady? Post it in the comment box.

CBG¹: Christian Blog Ghana

Feature Image Source: Pixabay

2019: To Make Plans or not to Make Plans

It’s another new year and the debate on whether to make plans or resolutions has started (as usual 🤷). I have been on both sides before. There have been years where I had nothing on paper because I believed God had the ultimate plan for my life. I was ‘comfortably living out’ Jeremiah 29:11 😊

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Of course, God was the master planner and so what was my role? Nothing much. Just acting out His plan and in those years, I really had nothing to show on 31st December. There were other years that I wrote my new resolutions on sheets of papers that I never bothered to look for. Those years were equally ordinary but last year, I did something very different that worked and in 2019, I am building on it and that is what I am going to share with you.

At the beginning of 2018, I wrote down what would define a successful year for me on a whiteboard which was strategically placed close to my bed. That board also served as a planner for this blog and the delight that came with checking out those milestones was amazing. I always had a broad smile whenever I crossed out my ‘little’ successes.

I had my overall goals for the year written at the top and at the bottom were monthly plans as well as objectives for this blog. For instance, after I read a book and conducted a review for the blog, I crossed that out. When I planned to interview people for the blog and I successfully executed it, I crossed that out. Those moments felt like big achievements for me and I never failed to thank God and also pat myself at the back. They weren’t easy to do and they came with a lot of sacrifices but the joy of crossing and updating them monthly made it fun.

This year, my plans are even more elaborate. They have been grouped under several headings including personal, career, Christian life, blogger among others because I am living out Habakkuk 2:2,

Then the LORD told me: “I will give you my message in the form of a vision. Write it clearly enough to be read at a glance.

I am going to lean on God’s grace and also put in my effort because I know His plans will reign supreme, therefore, I will keep communicating with Him to ensure we are on the same page. Note, Proverbs 19:21 says:

Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.

My little advice: Don’t leave this year to chance. If huge organisations are setting S-M-A-R-T goals and targets and achieving them, how much more your personal life? God would love to see you succeed. When Elisha in 2 Kings 4 went to the widow’s house, he asked her what she had in her house and she responded:

“Your maidservant has nothing in the house but a jar of oil.”

The jar of oil served as a channel for the widow’s blessings. Talk to God regularly and let Him know what you have in your ‘house’ and heart in 2019. Create that plan. Place it somewhere visible and work on achieving them and that could be the conduit for your blessing. I recently read a post on Facebook about a man who created a 10-year educational plan when he only had a Diploma. He did not have the funds readily available but worked on the plan nonetheless and currently has a PhD. Isn’t that amazing?

Remember to engage with God constantly to ensure you are on the right path and 2019 will not be an ordinary year like previous ones.

P.S: Happy and Blessed New Year from us to you. Those following our other social media platforms have seen this appreciation note and here is yours:

It promises to be an exciting year for the blog and if I were you, I will keep telling others about it.

*Happy New Year. May this year bring all that you’ve been praying for in Jesus’name! 😘😘😘*

Pause. Evaluate January

Development experts spend quite a substantial amount of their resources on monitoring and evaluation when executing a project. In fact, they hire officers in charge of this unique area even before the project starts. Why not at the end? This is because they do not underestimate the role of monitoring and evaluation. Measuring their successes and failures as they go through a project ensures they are charting the right course and perhaps, saves them more resources. If we determined to make good use of this new year, we can as well take a cue from the development experts – monitor and evaluate our progress with our various goals monthly.

Pause. Let’s go back to January 1. It’s been 30 amazing days already. How have you fared? Have you started working on your resolutions yet? Are you spending more time in prayer and reading the word? Are you working on acquiring that new skill, reading those books already or building yourself up in a specific capacity? Are you practicing that good saving habit? How about that new business? Have you started working on the proposal? If you haven’t started, it’s not too late to put down some goals, of course, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Don’t allow the year to pass by without you placing some demand on God, the Father.

One practice the Bible encourages is the writing down of our visions as stated in Habakkuk 2:2,

Then the LORD replied: “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets …

There are certain ideas and dreams that God has laid in our hearts. You may choose to call them resolutions, goals, dreams, ambitions or aspirations, but, take a paper or your phone, state them and include how the Holy Spirit has directed you to work towards them. You can only know the mind of the spirit when you spend time praying quality prayers.

This month, we learnt that the Holy Spirit makes everything possible for believers, hence, it is important to involve God in our plans. We also learned that whatever you ingest is what we bring out as Christians, therefore, we should be wary of what we allow into our senses. Let’s learn to build ourselves up by taking in the right stuff – which will help us achieve our bigger goals. It could be reading more books or watching videos that can build our intellect.

Take some time and cast your mind back to the beginning of the year and take an assessment. Do you like how you’ve spent the month? If you do, keep it up! If not, let’s involve God and work towards the various ministries that God has before us.

It’s been a great start but we trust that God has more in store for us. Let’s hold Him by His word!

New Year Resolutions – Are they relevant to Christians?

Back in Senior High School, a very good friend and I used to joke that our new year resolutions must be more terrible than the previous year. We resolved to be more ‘sly’ with our seniors, ‘cut’ school functions and simply break more rules because to us, in the previous year, we had been good but new year resolutions meant doing things differently.

Even though we were not confident enough to put into practice those resolutions, the perception we had added some excitement to the way we approached our seniors. That was also a wrong mindset and a not-so-good way to start the new year.

New Year resolutions are often defined as a tradition where individuals resolve to achieve certain goals (positive) and quit undesired behaviour.

Some of us, while we grow have stopped believing in new year resolutions because of personal reasons. We used to make lists of things we wish to achieve in a particular year but halfway, we realised we could not achieve them, hence, the decision to do without them.

We’d love to lose weight, continue our education, find better jobs, start our own businesses, find life partners, move out of our parents’ homes among others. These are some examples of new year resolutions.

The new year does not automatically change who we are. We do not become superhumans because the clock struck 12 midnight on 1-1-2018 but as Christians, we believe God’s mercies are new every morning and He’s a faithful God (Lamentations 3:22) who has the interest of His Children at heart. That is the reason He’d like to see us succeed each day and that is the reason we believe in positive new year resolutions.

From a personal experience with this blog, anytime I listed ideas of topics, I realised I was able to follow through proving right Habakkuk 2:2:

“Write down your visions on scrolls…”

Do not just fold your arms and watch the year pass by. Prayerfully seek the face of God on what He’d like to achieve with you in 2018 and list whatever He reveals to you. Go back and ask Him how He’d like you to achieve them. Hold God’s hand every day through quality prayer time and word study and see if you will not achieve what you had on that new year resolutions’ list.

We’ll be here at the end of the year to take your testimonies.

Happy New Year!