Pastoral Ponderings- Intentions, anyone? 

So we’re now into the first few days of 2025—anyone broken their new year’s resolutions yet? There’s still time! To avoid that frustration and try to help people do better, I’ve been hearing a little change in that language more and more, suggesting new year “intentions” rather than resolutions. Might that work?

Whether with “resolutions,” “intentions” or whatever, we usually think this time of year of ways we’d like to grow in the new year—so what are you praying about for those growing edges this time? Most all of us often think of things like eating better, spending more time with important people in our lives, that sort of thing—but don’t forget your faith journey too!
A more consistent prayer life perhaps? A plan to read through the Bible in a year? Finding ways to get more comfortable sharing with others? All great intentions! With whatever plans, remember the scriptural encouragement, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” and “in our weakness, He is made strong”—great thoughts to remind us both that we’re not alone in this, and that God is eager to help us along the way.

One of the strengths of the early Methodist movement hundreds of years ago was how they developed a variety of “methods” to intentionally grow in the faith (hence the name detractors started called our forebearers, as “methodists”). One of those “methods” included meeting regularly together for accountability, asking the question of each in attendance, “how goes it with your soul?”

So how goes it with YOUR soul? Where do you need to grow in your faith this year? Do you trust that you CAN do all things through Christ? Do you trust that God can make us strong, even in our weakness? It’s easy to have doubts—but don’t your remember that one of Jesus’ superheroes was best known as the doubter—yet was still one of Jesus’ superheroes–so even our doubts are not show-stoppers!

Story goes that Ben Franklin in the deliberations at the Continental Congress in 1787 kept looking at the image on the chair George Washington presided from. Was it an image of a sunrise or sunset, he pondered, as a sign of the beginning or the end of their adventure? Each new year, each new day, is a new adventure for us—and WE know, that we’re not adventuring alone! Make it a new sunrise for your faith!

So in your new year intentions, keep your spiritual growth on your list, and make it a new year full of blessings! Pastor Jim