Life Assessments

Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. – Psalm 139:23-24

For the past few months I have had to do a lot of assessing. I have had to look over our programs, events, strategy and space to evaluate the work of the children and youth ministry. It has been a fun and interesting task.

There have been hard conversations around direction and changes. There have been hard decisions to make as to what we should keep and what we should give up. We have had to be honest with ourselves and acknowledge that there are some things we are doing that just aren’t working or are unnecessarily wearing us out.

As I stated…it has been very interesting and fun.

As I reflected on the process and did a presentation on it for the church, it made me think about the season of the year we are in. It’s the end of an old year and we are getting ready to start a new one.

A lot of assessing will begin, if it hasn’t already, and we will be looking over things we have done or haven’t done and try to set goals to achieve. We will strive for a new us for the New Year.

If we don’t assess ourselves, we may get stuck in our rut. We may fail to see things that have been holding us back. We may fail to acknowledge the things that have been great for us and the events in our lives that have moved us to where we are today.

We need to constantly assess our individual work. Are we meeting our goals? Are we doing things that are healthy for us spiritually, mentally, and/or physically? Are we doing things that work for us or are we walking through quicksand? We need to be aware of ourselves.

As we step towards the New Year, slow down and look within. What are you doing to better yourself or the world around you? What activities are you partaking in that may be hindering you from growing or moving forward? What have you been holding on to that might be keeping you from experiencing life and life to the full?

Assess your life. Apply some effort to asking yourself some hard questions. Allow friends and family to speak into your experience. Open yourself up for discussion and constructive criticism. Accept the compliments, but allow people to be honest.

Most of all; be honest with yourself about who you are. Trust that you are made to do great things and implement a strategy to respond to the assessment results. That’s how a new year can start off right.

Question: Have you already started your New Year’s resolutions? Would you like to share?