Happy New Year! What are your hopes, dreams, and goals for the coming year? Have you made any New Year’s resolutions?

I learned awhile back that for me, resolutions aren’t helpful. They make me feel like a failure. I start out with all the good intentions I can muster, all the discipline and focus and planning to help me achieve my goal. Then something happens. I tilt out of my plan; I eat too much; I stop exercising; I miss days of Bible study. And I think, “Might as well quit. This isn’t going to work.”

Have you had that experience too? I don’t think I’m alone.

Don and I were in Carmel one gorgeous day last week. Brilliant sunshine sparkled on the water; fluffy white clouds hung from nothing above. Waves crashed on the beach, significantly bigger than we’d seen in quite a while, 10-15 feet high. Not only were the waves tall, they rumbled in one right after the other, sometimes four waves rolling in at one time. Beautiful. Powerful.

So, no resolutions for me this year. Instead, I want to focus on the memory of those 3 and 4 wave cycles at Carmel Beach. They remind me that God’s grace isn’t a one-time event. It is never ending, and is not dependent on how “good” I am, but on God’s character. And His grace rolls over me, wave after wave after wave. That’s my hope for this new year.

What’s yours? I’d love to hear it.