Ready set go!

Happy New Year!

It looks like 2023 is gonna be yet another year of change. Children are growing up, one already left for university overseas the previous year, the other is starting the Ah Boys to Men process this week! So the home is going to be a bit quieter, and the wife and I will be figuring out how to spend our time wisely.

Time. It's a directional dimension. You can move back and forth in space, and given the vastness of the universe, and hey even the earth, it is infinite for all humanly practical purposes. But you can only move ahead in time. And there's a very limited amount of it.

I was just looking through some of my previous New Year's entries, and my resolutions. Just a few clicks back, and I have an entry saying "I'm glad I made it to 43 years old". Whoa, how many years have zipped past since then!

I'm glad that some resolutions have become part of my life. Exercising regularly, eating healthily, writing this monthly blog, spending my daily quiet time with God. These are day-to-day commitments. They're not an objective to achieve, they're just a way of living. 

For these types of resolutions, experience has taught me that they only work if I start now, and aim to establish the habit within weeks. Good habits don't always stick immediately, and if there's a hiccup, I have to restart immediately.  If I delay the start or re-start, or if I take more than a few weeks to establish the habit, it simply doesn't happen. So I've got to articulate a specific habit, and then start it right away.

For example, I want to get to know the teachers in the Batam school better. It's never going to work if it's something generic like "I will spend quality time with the teachers". It's got to be "I will arrange to speak to them every month" (these days, video calls make this so much easier!). 

And it's got to start this month. Not next month. Otherwise that vague good intention (outreach, exercise, diet, prayer time, or whatever) will vapourise amidst the busyness of life. 

But some resolutions also have specific targets. For example, I have a habit of studying Indonesian for 15 minutes every day. It's become a way of life for me. But my target is to actually be conversant in Indonesian. I'm not quite there yet, and that takes time.

Depending on what my target is, it can take months or years of preparation. If I don't start now, then it will not happen. I need to put in the hard yards first. 

And I don't have unlimited time to do it. Each year is another year that won't come back. Things change. I get older. My friends get older. My children grow up. A stage of life passes, in family, school, workplace or ministry. I have to put in the time now, so that I can reach the target then, and in time.

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At the New Year's Eve service last night, my pastor told the story of how he got seriously stuck in the snow. As a young man studying and being posted overseas (before he became a pastor), he had been an expert skiier. So when he recently brought his family for a long awaited holiday, he eagerly returned to the slopes, and immediately headed for the advanced runs.

He fell. Again. And again. And again. Finally, he found himself stuck on the mountain, one ski lost, in hip deep snow. Thankfully, after digging around for hours, he found the ski and laboriously rolled down the slope on his butt :D

One big lesson learned? He had been an expert skiier. But that was twenty years ago! With age, and the lack of practice, muscle strength and memory now failed him. Stuck in deep snow, he couldn't go back up, and didn't know how to get down.

So it's not just about starting what we need to do, it's about keeping it going as well. We can't rest on what we used to do, and think we can still do it. We've got to keep doing it. Even more importantly, treasure the opportunity to do it, because even with the most diligent practice, time marches on inevitably. And we don't want to discover our time has passed, only when we're stuck in a pit, unable to extricate ourselves.

I remember experiencing the same as my pastor when I once foolishly tried a slightly more advanced slope and couldn't make it to the bottom! I too eventually scooted to the bottom on my bottom :D

Occasionally, another skiier would pass by and ask if I was ok. I would shrug and say, I'm fine. I was clearly in trouble, so why didn't I just say, no I'm not fine, help! I guess I was too proud to admit it? 

Eventually, after hours of scooting along on my butt, a rescuer turned up, and asked - do you need help? And exhausted, I admitted, yep, can you help me down? And he did, so I hitched myself to his toboggan and smoothly slid the rest of the way down. What a relief!

It's important to make good habits, start them now, and keep them going. But sometimes, because of our own mistakes, we do get stuck. Just ask for help. 

I'm glad to have had friends, family and God Himself to pull me out of various pits and snow drifts along the way. 

In 2023, I want to be humble enough to continue to ask for help, and grateful enough to offer my help in turn to those who are stuck. God has been my Great Rescuer in so many things, and he has sent so many people to help me along the way. Let's try this together :)