I Resolve

I resolve to live. I choose to do more than just exist. I resolve to embark on each new day as if it were a gift to be unwrapped. As I fill my lungs with the first conscious breath of the day I lift my spirit to the God of hope and pray, "Breathe on me breath of God." There was a promise given long ago that my life is a result of the handiwork of God, created in Christ Jesus to do good works that God prepared in advance for me to do. I resolve to live and empowered by the breath of God to discover what those good works are and do them.

I resolve to see. I am no longer content to simply look at those who are before me. I want to see them. I want to be aware not only of the person but the soul that is shaped by the hand of a loving God. I want to see the dignity of the one before me as one who was knit together by the hands of her creator, fearfully and wonderfully made.

I resolve to listen. I believe within each of us is the desire to know and be known. In my desire to be heard, to be known I have often spoken when I should have been listening. Today I choose to listen with not only my ears but my heart. I will seek to understand the unique strength and beauty of the person in front of me, as well as their tangled thoughts and broken dreams.

I resolve to appreciate what I've been given. If when God was creating the heavens and the earth he declared it good, surely I can look for the fingerprints of the Creator and enjoy the beauty around me. I choose to let the birds, soaring above the earth across the expanse of the heavens each painted with artistic genius and given a unique song to sing, lift my spirit. The splashes of color and the perfumed air created by the flowers I will receive as gifts. With my senses of taste and touch, sight and hearing I will explore the world around me as if I were a child experiencing it for the first time. I choose to receive the world around me as a gift to be opened with a grateful heart.

I resolve to live, to see, to listen, and to appreciate what I've been given, but there's more. I know that the pressures of life could crush me so I resolve to ask the God of hope to fill me with all joy and peace in believing. Because I know I cannot fulfill my resolution in my own strength I choose to submit myself to the power of the Holy Spirit so that I may abound in a confident expectation of good and receive each new day as if it were a gift to be unwrapped.