Goals for 2011

Are you thinking about what goals you want to have for the New Year? I love setting goals. Through the years I have set all sorts of goals. I have set goals about the different aspects of my life (emotional, physical, mental, etc) and goals for home education. Sometimes I have had a complete laundry list of goals and other times I have set a couple of goals. I've always tried to work hard on them and I usually do a pretty good job at accomplishing them.

I could give you a discourse on how to set goals and how to accomplish them-I have lectured on it multiple times through the years to various groups of people. I think this year I'm going simple since I have a simple life. It fits the general mood of my life you know. Besides if I keep it incredibly simple I won't even have to waste paper and wall space (or binder space) with my goals.

So in keeping with simplicity I've narrowed my long lists of goals down to one. Drum role please………………. My goal for 2011 is submission. I actually had it as a goal last year too. It worked out pretty good. It worked out good because I learned and grew at an incredible rate this past year. When I say it worked out pretty good I don't mean I was perfect with it because I was not! It did work out well though because there were numerous situations when I languished over what to do when I was reminded of my goal. That made the decisions easier-"Oh yeah, submit and obey. I am going to do that!" Great blessings always followed.

There are a lot of scriptures that speak of this,

"Wherefore, by the ministering of angels, and by every word which proceed forth out of the mouth of God, men began to exercise faith in Christ; and thus by faith, they did lay hold upon every good thing; thus it was until the coming of Christ." Moroni 7:25

"Therefore, O ye that embark in the service of God, see that ye serve him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day." D & C 4:2

"For you shall live by every word that proceedeth forth from the mouth of God." D & C 84: 44

"Therefore, cease from all your light speeches, from all laughter, from all your lustful desires, from all your pride and light-mindedness and from all your wicked doings." D & C 88:121

Talking about one's submission also opens the doorway to discussion about the Lords absolutes in the scriptures. We are to live by every word, not just most words. We are also to serve with all our heart, not just some of it. That is hard though isn't it?! That is why we have our mortal probation; our time to prove ourselves faithful. As we strive for personal submission every moment than we will refine ourselves more and more. Eventually we will have that transformed character that Elder Scott recently spoke on. He said, "We become what we want to be by consistently being what we want to become each day." He also said, "You become what you do and what you think about." So if we put submission in the forefront of our life and that is what we think about and we try to 'be' eventually the miraculous will occur and we will become that-a truly submissive child of God.

So that is my New Year's Resolution; I want to submit each day to my God. This with take effort, it will take repentance, but day by day and moment by moment I have faith that I will finally become.