With the start of a new calendar year, the time is right to evaluate your commitments of time, money and resources. If they are controlling you, you will not be free to do what God calls you to do. Of course, if you are doing nothing because you are waiting for God to tell you what to do, you may not be listening to what God says either. Once you have said to someone that you are going to do something, it is like making a promise before God. He does not take it lightly when we break our promises to one of his people. This means, we have to be careful about what we commit to doing in the first place. I have made this mistake so many times – my heart is always in the right place but my ability to follow through simply does not exist because I have made too many commitments in the first place.
God really has worked on me in this area. I stopped making commitments to everyone and everything long ago, and instead began to focus on what God is calling me to do. (I actually have to credit Dan for helping me learn this lesson – and I learned it the hard way by failing a time or two before I listened to his teaching on this.) Then I have to do what I have been called to do with excellence and without concern for the things I am NOT committed to do. It is an important part of becoming a person who says what you will do and then does what you say. When I look back at my calendar I can say that I am spending more time with people God has called me to pour into and more time doing things that God has called me to do.
How are you doing with your commitments? Are you committing your God-given resources to the things God has called you to do? Use the start of the year to clean out your commitments and clean up your calendar so that when you look back over the year, you can look at it and know you are spending your resources wisely.
