To be honest, I haven’t been feeling super jazzed about the new year. January 1st didn’t feel like a fresh new start, but just another day really. Maybe it’s because we don’t have a lot on the calendar yet for this year, so there’s not a whole lot to look forward to and a lot of unknowns for the Burns’.

At first, this was kinda depressing. But as I thought about it, I realized what a gift God has given us. How is not having anything to look forward to a gift, you ask.

It’s the gift of making it just a little easier to surrender all our tomorrows and live in today.

I feel like this new year God is asking me, do you trust me enough to let go? Do you trust me enough to just live in today and let me worry about tomorrow??

 

The funny thing is that there’s really no way to know anyways, right? There have been years that started out looking so promising and then things went sideways and ended up being really hard. Then there have been years that looked more mundane that ended up being really great and exciting. But I still like to think I can figure it out apparently. 😛

Of course, I do have some hopes and goals for this year. But this year, I’m just very aware that I have no idea how or if they are going to come about.

God has simply taken away my timelines and illusions of control.

And what a blessing it is!! The trouble with goals is that it tends to make us a little too focused on the future and a little less present and content in today. As someone who can easily slip into hyper-focusing on what’s to come and trying to figure it all out, I have a tendency to fall into the wrong thinking that things will be better when this or that happens. The end result is that I feel anxious and stressed out and the day at hand is completely emptied of contentment, peace, and focus.

We never know how many days we have on this earth. I don’t want to spend them always looking ahead and never enjoying where I’m at right now and I know that’s not what God wants for me either!

So it’s not so much a resolution as it is a focus for this year and that’s to not focus on this year ;), but just on today. Not just focus but to truly live IN today, content in Him and all that He is for me in this day. Daily surrendering and holding all my hopes and goals with an open hand and asking that not my will but His be done.

I came across this quote just last night and couldn’t believe how perfect it was for everything going on in my head right now: 🙂

“The life of faith is lived one day at a time, and it has to be LIVED – not always looked forward to as though the “real” living were around the next corner. It is today for which we are responsible. God still owns tomorrow.” ~Elisabeth Elliot

Christian or not, this applies to the health and fitness journey too.

I’m not saying don’t have goals. If you’re feeling refreshed and motivated right now, then by all means, use that energy! But if you focus too much on the goal, you’ll feel impatient and easily defeated at every little hiccup (and trust me, there will be hiccups). It’s in surrendering the outcome (or at least, the timeline) and focusing on today, that you’ll learn how to love it and make it a lifestyle.