Beginning a "Fresh Start"
A friend posted a question on his site, "How do you begin a 'fresh start'?"
Starting anew is never new to me. Every now and then, I was inspired to change and started a series of so-called continual improvement plans. And every new year for the past two decades, I came up with new year resolutions.
The interesting part is that my resolutions and plans have not changed much. Certain parts have changed and certain parts remained. And this year, when someone asked me for my year 2011 resolution, I just told him that my new year resolution is the same as last year's.
I guess every year or every now and then, I have wanted a drastic change in the way I live my life, I have wanted to do this and that to make myself a better person but I am still struggling and trying.
What I have learnt through these experiences is that I ought not be overly ambitious about change. Begin a "fresh start" is to start with a small step forward. And that small step will make a whole lot of diffence for without us realizing, we have already taken a giant or more amazingly a quantum leap because of the many small steps we have taken.
To discipline oneself, one can start by going to bed early and waking up early. It sounds easy but in fact it is not. Imagine your alarm is ringing, and you are so tempted to snooze it so that you can sleep for another miserable 5 minutes. You want to sleep early but there is a good show or the football match is on. I see all these as the first step toward self-discipline and self-control, and it is a daily dying to my own self.
A relationship begins with "hi" and smile. That small step will lead to conversations and later heart-to-heart talk. Finally, a friendship is formed. And we hunger for more, we hope to see each other more often. That is when we have common activities together.
A better relationship with God begins with spending 5 to 10 minutes with God daily. Then as time goes by, we hunger for more, we want to see God more frequent, then we commit more time for God. From 5 to 10 minutes a day, we go on to 20 minutes and 30 minutes, and finally we have found ourselves spending time with God 1 hour a day.
We are as if in deep love that even outside prayer, we see burning bushes everywhere, every moment becomes a moment of grace, and every encounter is a touch of God. Our life has become a prayer itself and we have become the answer to someone's prayer.
It all begins with a small step forward. It reminds me of the Wedding in Cana where Mary told the servants who ran out of wine to "listen to him (Jesus)". And they listened and filled the twelve jars with water. That was a small and insignificant deed that anyone could have done. But Jesus transformed the water into good wine.
I believe any small steps that we take, every effort we make for the sake of Christ will not end in vain. God will grace and transform our steps into giant or quantum leap.
Starting anew is never new to me. Every now and then, I was inspired to change and started a series of so-called continual improvement plans. And every new year for the past two decades, I came up with new year resolutions.
The interesting part is that my resolutions and plans have not changed much. Certain parts have changed and certain parts remained. And this year, when someone asked me for my year 2011 resolution, I just told him that my new year resolution is the same as last year's.
I guess every year or every now and then, I have wanted a drastic change in the way I live my life, I have wanted to do this and that to make myself a better person but I am still struggling and trying.
What I have learnt through these experiences is that I ought not be overly ambitious about change. Begin a "fresh start" is to start with a small step forward. And that small step will make a whole lot of diffence for without us realizing, we have already taken a giant or more amazingly a quantum leap because of the many small steps we have taken.
To discipline oneself, one can start by going to bed early and waking up early. It sounds easy but in fact it is not. Imagine your alarm is ringing, and you are so tempted to snooze it so that you can sleep for another miserable 5 minutes. You want to sleep early but there is a good show or the football match is on. I see all these as the first step toward self-discipline and self-control, and it is a daily dying to my own self.
A relationship begins with "hi" and smile. That small step will lead to conversations and later heart-to-heart talk. Finally, a friendship is formed. And we hunger for more, we hope to see each other more often. That is when we have common activities together.
A better relationship with God begins with spending 5 to 10 minutes with God daily. Then as time goes by, we hunger for more, we want to see God more frequent, then we commit more time for God. From 5 to 10 minutes a day, we go on to 20 minutes and 30 minutes, and finally we have found ourselves spending time with God 1 hour a day.
We are as if in deep love that even outside prayer, we see burning bushes everywhere, every moment becomes a moment of grace, and every encounter is a touch of God. Our life has become a prayer itself and we have become the answer to someone's prayer.
It all begins with a small step forward. It reminds me of the Wedding in Cana where Mary told the servants who ran out of wine to "listen to him (Jesus)". And they listened and filled the twelve jars with water. That was a small and insignificant deed that anyone could have done. But Jesus transformed the water into good wine.
I believe any small steps that we take, every effort we make for the sake of Christ will not end in vain. God will grace and transform our steps into giant or quantum leap.
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