Youth: January 9th, 2021
Hello Everyone!
I hope you all had a great Christmas and a Happy New Year! This week we found out that the provincial health order will be in place until February, which means no Youth! It's a big bummer, but we'll be having another Live Youth on Zoom next Friday! I'm super looking forward to it and to seeing you all again, so I hope you'll all be there! Now this week I decided to write a little study to encourage us and for us to think about, and maybe we can talk about some of these things when we talk on Friday!
So New Year, New You right? Do you ever make New Years Resolutions? Do you ever keep them? I always struggled to keep them, I would go a week, but then get distracted by something else, like school or work, and fall off the wagon. This past year, I managed to keep my New Years Resolution! Pretty surprising right!? For me anyways. But don't get too celebratory just yet, because you'll see that my New Years Resolution was not that impressive.
My 2020 Resolution was to watch more movies.
See? Not exactly a turn-your-life-around kind of change, right? However, I had my reasons. I wanted to hear more stories, see more art, and see some different perspectives. And I kept my resolution! I watched so many different movies! But by the time the New Years rolled around, and I was looking at my illustrious year of movie watching and resolution keeping, I wondered why are New Years Resolutions so difficult to keep in the first place?
Why do you think New Years Resolutions are so hard to keep?
I won't go to deep into detail, but I think that we naturally love instant results. The satisfaction of seeing something change immediately for the better. Like when your nose is really itchy and then when you scratch it's suddenly better. But New Years Resolutions aren't instantaneous. Your New Years Resolution to get in shape doesn't automatically make you loose weight and get in shape. You actually have to work for it (sucks right?). And even though the pay off of working towards something over a period of time is perhaps even better than an instant change, staying on course is difficult. God gives us an opportunity at a turn-your-life-around resolution. At eternal life! The greatest gift of all. Yet I don't know about you, but the most difficult resolution to follow. I want easy and instant gratification, yet God asks of me hard things, to trust him in hard times, and to follow his Word. "“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." Jesus says in Matthew 7:13. How can I hope to follow this narrow path, when I can't even follow my own little New Years Resolutions?
Why do you think the road to destruction is wide, and the road to life narrow? What can we do to follow this more difficult Resolution God offers us?
Well those are all of my thoughts for this weekend. Again I am so so so excited to host Online Youth this Friday and hope you'll all be able to join us! See you next week, and of course, if you have any questions, comments, or concerns about Youth, reach out to me via email! youth@olivet.bc.ca Have a great week and see you soon!
- Clare