A good strategy for a New Year …

As we sit on the precipice of a New Year, many people (particularly leaders) have already loaded into their 2019 calendar a few “big events,” happenings that are designed to be more spectacular than all the other days in the coming year.

These people will expend most of their energy and resources in 2019 just for making these few events be as spectacular as they dream. For them, the “success” of 2019 will be very narrowly measured around these events.

We can follow their example and live for a few moments of glory … OR … there’s another choice: to opt for a “glorious life”.

When we make our year all about a few moments of glory, we can hallow out of the gift of time what each day could hold if we lived them as valued and as enthusiastically as chasing the big items on our calendars. Living a “glorious life” is waking each morning to greet God and, partnering with the Holy Spirit who lives in us, we pick up our crosses and follow Jesus through the adventure of another 24 hours.

There’s nothing wrong with having some “big things” on your calendar. In fact, that can be a wise way of accomplishing some important things that serve the needs of others and please God. But don’t forget we have the opportunity to do that every single day of our lives. Our daily opportunities may be smaller in scale than the events on our schedules, but they’re just as important and just as impacting to the lives they touch.

Prior to the start of a new year, it can be wise to sit and identify some important things that can be, and should be, done in the coming year, should the Lord give us the time and opportunity. Focus and resources for these events should be harnessed and expended. But not at the expense of making all the other days of your life count for Christ — they’re important, too! Put another way, there’s a certain value in “plugging along” in life, as the following story show us …

Given a long and perhaps monotonous job, one person may quit in disgust. Facing the same chores, another person may plug away, day after day, until the end is reached. This common figment of speech compares anyone in the latter category with a plug horse. Unlike a splendid racer who gave everything it had for a limited time and then was put out to pasture, the plug horse sometimes devoted an entire life to pulling a hackney cab or a dreay. After a decade of such work, an animal’s steps were likely to be slow and plodding. Probably named from the typical noises made in walking, the plug horse had it all over the racehorse in one respect. A plug kept on going, year after year, until a contemporary racer’s productive life was long surpassed, suggesting that a person who plugs away at a task may eventually reach a point that a fiery enthusiast never glimpses except from a distance.

When looking back on their lives, the “fiery enthusiast” will have moments of glory to celebrate, but the “plug horse” will have a glorious life of consistent, persistent service that accomplishes much more over time. A combination of the two can be a great way to live — having times of huge accomplishments, and an ongoing measure of productivity.

Church leaders too often are blinded by anything other than a few big calendar items they have to make happen and can forget that, in the long run, the church they lead will reach more people for Christ by the members of the congregation going into their communities every day and living as disciples of Jesus with those who don’t know Christ than will ever be accomplished by a few big events held in a church building.

To be as productive as possible, we need the combination of planned and scheduled “important events” with the consistent plugging along of daily devotion to Jesus.

That could be a good strategy for a New Year.

Scotty