Eyes on Jesus Podcast Episode 32: Resolutions- New Year, New Growth

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Ep32: Resolutions- New Year, New Growth

Tim: [00:00:00] Well, welcome to the Eyes on Jesus podcast with Drew and Tim. We’re here with you today talking about New Year’s. We’re recording this in December, but at the time of this recording, Christmas will have been over. Wow. Went by so fast, didn’t it, Drew?

Drew: It was, it’s already just gone. Boom. I’ve already traveled.

I’ve already

Tim: done everything. It’s great. Hopefully you had a great Christmas, and we want to talk to you today about New Year’s resolutions. Before we do that, Drew, how have you been? What’s new in your world? Man,

Drew: everything’s great. I love that we’re talking about New Year’s resolutions because that’s one of the things that I’m currently like working on is not just a.

New year’s resolution, but what is God sending me into in this next year? And I’m sure we’ll get into that more, but man, it’s just been an exciting season. God’s doing a lot in my family and my life personally through my church. And it’s been really cool to see just a lot of good things, man, nothing to complain about.

Very blessed, very excited, to uh, see these kids’ faces light up on Christmas, like you said, which has already passed [00:01:00] and yeah, it’s just, it’s a good time. How about you? What’s going on with you?

Tim: Yeah, it’s been a good season so far. We finally hit cooler weather here in Arizona.

It just took us until December to get here, but now we know what is cooler weather 60 60. Okay. All right. Yesterday I was overcast with some rain. So hey, that’s good. That’s great for us. We love that. If it gets fifties or forties, it’s way too cold for me. So, I’m in the perfect range of sixties to seventies, which should stay through that.

It doesn’t go lower than fifties for a high for sure around here. Okay. But for the most part, it’s been great. We had a good Thanksgiving and, you know, for Christmas, like our, we talked to previous episode about, you know, traditions for Christmas and stuff. And right off the bat after Thanksgiving, we started watching Christmas movies because I found other years.

It’d be like the third week of Christmas and we’re like, man, we haven’t watched anything yet. And so, we’re trying to be intentional about watching stuff, making sure we’re making use of our time as we’re still crazy and doing stuff. But yeah, I’m excited for this next [00:02:00] year. And you know, we talked as well about an election year coming up, and so this is going to be.

An interesting year in a number of ways, but as we talk about specifically resolutions, it’s one of those things that I think most people at least crosses their mind, even if you’re not someone who makes resolutions, at least it crosses your mind. Oh, it’s the new year. What? At least? Is this next year going to hold for me and my family?

What, hopefully you’re asking what God has for you, what vision he’s cast upon you and your family and maybe your ministry. Maybe that’s the realm that you take this conversation when we talk about resolutions and some of you listening actually make resolutions. You write them down, you share them, you hold yourself to them at least for a month and then you kind of move on.

We want to talk about some of the pitfalls of doing resolutions and some of the dangers as well, because I think like anything, it’s if you misuse it or it’s how you do it. If you’re just doing it to put it on social media and get a following, Hey, look at me at the [00:03:00] gym for a week. You’re probably doing it for the wrong motivation.

You know, you’re probably doing it not with the intention of working out and getting healthy, but actually just to show people, Hey, you’re doing something with. Your new year’s resolution. And so what do you do, Drew? Do you have resolutions? How do you start the new year? Every year? I know you’ve talked before about, you kind of have a mission statement for yourself.

What’s about that?

Drew: You got it. So, I’m not a resolution guy but in a way I’m trying to do something new for the new year. So, you know, it’s really just a different title. I could certainly make it a resolution, but what I’ve noticed is. I’m 37 years old. I don’t have one defined New Year’s resolution that I still do.

I don’t have one. I’ve failed miserably on all of them. So hopefully our listeners are immediately like, Alright, cool. He’s like me. Like he does the same stuff. Cause I’ve had the Januarys where I’m like, this is my year. I’m gonna get in shape. And like you said, you know, four to eight [00:04:00] weeks into the year, I’m like, Oh yeah, that’s right.

I did. I need to cancel my gym membership. You know, I’m like, I haven’t gone. And so, I just, I’ve decided to kind of take a different approach. So, first of all, I think what’s great about new year’s is it’s a lot like birthdays. It’s very healthy. Anytime something happens in your life where you have a moment to reflect.

And look back and go, all right, how has this year been? Where am I in life? I think anytime you have a moment to pause and look at that’s really good. It’s really healthy. And then assess, all right, am I where I want to be? And we’re all human. And I’m willing to bet that everyone, me, you, and everyone listening to this episode is going, no, I’m not where I want to be.

I’m doing good things. I’m not where I used to be, which is great, but I’m not where I want to be. So, one of the things that or a couple of things that I do every year, number one, I send out an [00:05:00] email. To About five now. It used to be a little less but now it’s about five close friends And I asked them in an email.

I asked them to reply back and tell me something that I wouldn’t want to hear so Yeah, so I reach out to five people that I can trust, that know me well, that know not just the Drew that preaches on Sunday, but know my character daily, that talk with me weekly, and I ask them to tell me something that I wouldn’t want to hear a way that I could grow maybe a character flaw They’re seeing maybe a pattern that could turn into a flaw that they’re seeing anything and out of that five, I usually get three or four of the five That come back with hey Here’s something maybe you could look at heading into the new year.

And I greatly value that because I always want to get better. And I believe that no [00:06:00] matter how high you get in leadership, you’re going to have blind spots. You’re going to have some challenges that you don’t see. So that’s one thing that I do that allows me to kind of have some perspective, kind of allows me to be humbled a little bit heading into the new year.

And then the other thing I do is, and I completely got this from one of Craig Groeschel’s books. I’ve been doing this for about four, maybe five years now. I write what I call I am, I do statements. And this is where I write down what kind of person, what kind of leader, what kind of dad, what kind of husband I want to be in the new year.

And so, I say like this past year I’m a, bold, consistent, disciplined, forward thinking and intense leader who surrenders each day to Christ. So that was my, I am statement, right? So that’s a lot going on there. And then I say, well, based on that, what do I do? And what I noticed in my life this time last year is there were some [00:07:00] mornings I would get up when my alarm went off, there were some mornings that.

I wouldn’t. But if I’m going to be a bold, consistent, disciplined leader I got to get up on time. So, I had my, I am statement. And then my, I do was I get up on time. I don’t waste time. I serve my family and control my tongue. I progress forward and I point others to Christ. So, I have my, I am in my, I do.

And every morning my alarm would go off. I would go, Oh,

I’m a bold, consistent, disciplined, forward thinking, and intense leader who surrenders each day to Christ. I get up on time and I don’t waste time. I get up my phone, turn my alarm off and I’d get up and I’d go do what I need to do knowing that’s who I am now. And so, I had to speak that over my life and speak that into my heart, really, before I was those things, you know, before I could really stand by it.

So, that’s one of the things I’m currently working on heading into this upcoming year. I’m going to [00:08:00] have a new I am, I do statement. I already know that it’s going to revolve based on my prayer life. It’s going to revolve around authority. And the authority that I speak with, but also where that authority comes from.

And so, I don’t have the verbiage completely worked out, but I know that’s the direction God’s leading me. So that’s where I’ve kind of taken new year’s resolutions with the help of some books, with the help of other leaders and with the help of some friends. And it’s all in hopes that my 2024.

Would be better personally, which I think would then bleed into the lives of those that I influence and those that are around me and that we would have a better 2024 than 2023. So that’s where.

Tim: I’m at. Very intentional. And it’s something you do throughout the year. It’s not just, you know, for a week or a month.

I think a lot of the point is if you’re going to do something, do it well and do it with intention and do it not just to have a goal, but do it to win and knowing that you’re going to wake up on those mornings and not want to [00:09:00] do it. But at the same time, that goal should drive you forward to keep pursuing it and having other people that hold you accountable.

Yeah, I pulled up an article. It was the top on the search on New Year’s resolutions and it was 19 mind blowing New Year’s resolution statistics. So of course, I had to click it because yeah, you have to. We’re not going to go 19, but just for fun, I think it’s interesting. First of all, that it says the Babylonians made up the first New Year’s resolutions about 4, 000 years ago, not on the 1st of January, but mid-March when they celebrated the spring harvest festival of barley.

Called a key to so the

Drew: festival of barley. I forgot that’s coming up.

Tim: That’s big time. You know, Christmas is pagan while new year’s resolutions. You could make a claim that those are pagan too. So why do almost any holiday people would love to call that they’re pagan. So anyway, I thought that was funny.

Babylonians came up with this. But the main statistics are that 38. 5 percent of U. S. adults set New Year’s resolutions every year. 59 percent of young [00:10:00] adults, 18 to 34, have New Year’s resolutions. 48 percent of those want to exercise more. 23 percent quit in the first week. And only 36 percent make it past the first month and 9 percent overall successfully keep their new year’s resolution.

So kind of a joke now that you just make them in order to break them at which it goes down to what’s the point, right? Why are 91 percent of people making these resolutions if they’re going to break them within the first month? And so, I don’t know, maybe it’s peer pressure. Maybe it’s just something you’ve always done.

Maybe it’s just. You know, people like us talking about resolutions and you feel bad and you’re like, oh, maybe I need to make some and it goes back to the why we should never do anything because of peer pressure. We should do it because of God’s pressure, I guess, for lack of a better term for God’s vision upon us of what we should do.

And I think it’s funny from my perspective, I worked in retail for 24 years and retail is very seasonal as it [00:11:00] is. There’s always the next season you’re thinking about even before the season you’re in is over. Sure. So right on. December 26 every year, we tear down Christmas stuff and immediately we would have the health food.

We would have the freezers that were filled with healthy choice. The very front display was always like promotional and now we would tear down the whole thing. It would be healthy chips. It would be like sparkling water. It would be all the

Drew: candy to the back. No one’s coming for that stuff.

Tim: Yeah. Yeah, you’d have such a big push of all the healthy stuff.

And then we’d have way too much inventory of it all after we took it down. But the funny part is we took it down like second or third week into January and not just for anything, but we took it down for Superbowl. And you can imagine all the Superbowl stuff that comes in is the complete opposite of all the healthy stuff.

So that front display that was all healthy stuff is now Lay’s chips and Cheetos and soda and beer. [00:12:00] And it’s just like, man, because you’re telling people, yeah, those New Year’s resolutions to eat healthy and to work out. Now look at all this cool stuff you can buy that just helps you, do the complete opposite. And so, I think some of that in my anecdotal example is something we see in culture is that it’s always about the next thing. And so, whatever you commit to is always, I think, in lieu of the next big thing. And so going back to if you’re going to make those commitments, if you’re going to say that this is what’s best for me and my family, then.

You really need strategic steps in order to see it through. You need a habit. You need something that you see every day, something you say every day, something that’s at the forefront of your busy life, because those are easy to forget about. So, if your spouse isn’t behind you, if your kids are eating junk food while you’re trying to eat healthy, then it’s a lot harder to keep those things going than it is.

If your whole family’s behind it, if it’s something you’re, you know, Like we’re pastors. If it’s something like others on our leadership team are doing, [00:13:00] it’s a lot easier to do it together. We always do it. Most churches. I want to say I see a lot of churches do it is a fast during January and we do one usually around the seventh to the 28th, the 21 day fast.

Some people do a 30 day fast and that’s one of the things I think coming out of the new year where we set aside time, whether you fast the entire 21 to 30 days or not, what you set aside time to fast something in order to seek God in order to clear your mind of the craziness of life coming out of a holiday season and to really set a vision for what God has for you for the next year.

And so I think that’s a great thing to resolve to do if we’re going to talk about resolutions is to fast more or to fast for a specific period of time. Maybe you don’t know on January 1st what you want to do. And so, you’re going to set aside time to fast and seek God to see what he has to say before you actually just throw some random things on paper.

Well, I probably should do this. I probably should eat. Less [00:14:00] sugar. I probably should go to the gym, but your heart. Yeah,

Drew: right. I think that’s great. That’s a great perspective, right? We want to make sure that whatever we’re putting into our life, whatever we’re planning out for our life, that we go to the right Source and that’s not ourselves.

So, we definitely want to make sure that we’re consulting the creator of the universe That would make sense. And then secondly, can we create goals that are like achievable I’ll have people come up to me and be like, you know what, Pastor Drew? I’ve decided this upcoming January, I’m going to read the Bible. That’s my New Year’s resolution. I’m going to read the whole Bible. And I’m like.

And they’re like, yeah, I’ve got this 30-day reading plan. I’m like, how much do you read now? Oh, I don’t. Okay. That’s not going to work. You’re going to, you’re going to get to Leviticus and give up on like, that’s not going to work. So why don’t we just. Why don’t we start with achievable goals? So that’s like the christianese [00:15:00] kind of thing then there’s like, okay, I’m gonna go to the gym, right?

And what people will do is think that they’re going to get into the gym and they’re going to feel As strong or be as strong as they were the last time they were in the gym Which may have been back in high school or college, which I can just tell you from experience Not the case. All right, not how it’s going to work.

And You’ll sit there and go, oh, I’m gonna go to the gym every day. That’s my goal. I’m gonna go to the gym every day. Monday, Tuesday, you’re in the gym. Wednesday, you’re a little sore. It’s rainy and cold outside. You don’t go. Guess what? Now you’re like, see, I just can’t stick to anything. And now you’ve got a negative narrative in your mind, in your head.

And you, then you end up ruining it. How about you? Set like an achievable goal. That’s based on like beating yourself statistically. So, what if you were to say, I’m going to see how many times I can go to the gym this week. If you go once, cool. You went once. [00:16:00] Then the next week rolls around. I’m going to see if I can go more than once.

Maybe that week you go three times. I’m going to see if I can go more than three times. Like, that’s an achievable goal that builds on itself. You know, so, so make small goals. Like for me, podcast before, but I count my workouts. I know how much weight I do. I don’t really have weight goals.

I know how much weight how many pounds I weigh. I don’t really have a diet goal. I just know that if I consistently go to the gym one way or another, I’m going to be in better shape than if I didn’t go to the gym. That’s all I really know. My eating habits are better than they were, but they’re, I’m not on some like keto diet.

Like, I pounded some Starbursts last night with my daughter. Like, that’s just what I do sometimes, okay? So, what I know is that the way my brain works is I need to have some positive reinforcement as I’m going [00:17:00] along in the process, or I won’t recognize the progress I’ve made in the process and biblically I would give up on the promise.

I would give up on what I thought I’m supposed to be too. So I want to encourage our listeners like whatever goal you’re setting like make sure it’s achievable. Don’t get crazy Don’t get outlandish. Today this morning. I went and played basketball for 90 minutes And it was my 490th workout 490th what that tells me is that I’m gonna hit Over 500 workouts and I started counting two years ago So I don’t know like I know what I bench but I don’t really have a bench goal I know it’s a lot more than I used to And I don’t really like have a running goal or cardio goal or diet goal I just know that I’m about to hit 500 workouts 500 workouts in two years 250 workouts a year.

That’s pretty good I’m happy with that, but that bet I’m gonna keep counting [00:18:00] going in the next year Now I’m kind of like man, wouldn’t it be cool to hit a thousand? I wonder what I’ll look like I hit a thousand workouts. I wonder what I’ll bench when I hit a thousand workouts, but I won’t know if until I get there Right, right So I just I want to make sure our listeners like make you know, make achievable goals be reasonable, you know, You know you okay, and if you don’t work out now Like you I’m gonna work out every day.

Don’t start there Don’t do that to yourself.

Tim: And as you get older too, and what you said is that, Oh, I, if I can’t work out like I did in my twenties and forget it, you know, and I was in that mindset too, because I mentioned this in our workout episode when we talked about it exclusively, but in my late twenties, I really got in shape.

I did P90X and all these programs and stuff. And then my mid-thirties, I started having. These health things going on. And what that led to was the fact that I can’t do intense programs like I used to. And so there was a period of a few years where I would try and I would get [00:19:00] frustrated or my back, I had a slipped disc.

And so, my back would hurt. And so, I was like, I can barely move today, let alone work out. And so it really put me in a path of like, well, just forget it. I can’t do anything. I can’t work out. And so why even try? And that led me to a place where two years ago now I started working out with the, some of the pastors at church.

And so, we’d go almost every day and it’s been two years now and I’ve gone at least four or five times every week. And for me, that’s a win because I know mentally where I was and where I just almost gave up on working out completely. And at the same time, it’s like, okay, I’m still going to the gym. I’m not doing, you know, insane things. I don’t do, you know, like a lot of intense stuff on my back because of whatever, you know, is going on there. And sometimes even like legs, my legs will hurt and start to be wobbly. And so, I don’t do a lot of intense leg stuff, but I do a lot of other stuff, you know, you do something, right.

It’s a tradeoff. It’s a trade off from, [00:20:00] you know, doing nothing versus if I can’t do everything, then I’ll do nothing. And so I think, you know, depending on where you’re at in life and how old you are and what, Injuries you have and you might be at that point and you might be injured to the point where you can’t do anything and to not find your value in what you can’t do, but to find your value in what you can do and who God’s made you to be and you know, the giftings that you have and how you can use them for God, despite the fact of what you’d like to do, maybe he’s calling you to do something different.

So that goes back to, you know, seeking God and being aware of where you’re at in life. And I can, I can imagine when I’m in my sixties, I’ll be in a different mindset where, man, I wish I could work out like I was 20 years ago, you know, and it’ll be a whole new set of problems, right? Right. Both medical and physical and.

No. So I think being realistic, like you said, is very important as we talk about our goals, being realistic with our Christian goals, like you said. And we just did a prayer series in November at church. And one of the things I said when I preached [00:21:00] was the fact that, you know, when you come out of a prayer series, a lot of times the first thing you say is, Okay, I get it.

Prayer is important. I got to pray more. So what? What? What? What’s the number I got to get to? Like what? Just tell me so I can do it. Just tell me so I can get it done. Right? So, I’m at five minutes a day. Are you saying I got to put my numbers to 10? Like, just make it so clear so I can get this done and be a good Christian and go about my day.

Right? That’s kind of our mindset sometimes. Yeah. especially if you’re like a doer and you’re organized and you just want to say, okay, how long do I need to read my Bible? How long do I need to pray? How often do I need to go to church? Right. Yeah. How often do I need to serve? Right. All these things that we say we’re supposed to do.

And if you’re asking those questions, your heart’s probably in the right. Place, I’m guessing. But at the same time, you’re asking the wrong question because things like prayer and Bible reading. It’s not about numbers. It’s not about doing what someone else is doing and modeling their behavior.

Prayer is about relationship. And so, prayer specifically, when you talk about prayer, it should be your desire to pray. And so even if you have a minute A day that [00:22:00] you get to pray to God. That’s something you’re looking forward to. It’s something that you’re anticipating. It’s something that you just can’t wait to get into his presence and pray.

And then as you pray without ceasing, as the Bible says, you just look for opportunities to pray throughout the day. So it’s not just I didn’t need 10 minutes in the morning. I’m not going to talk to God the rest of the day. No, it is a lifestyle of prayer. So, prayer should be our first step and not our last resort.

And oftentimes we do everything else in order to get to the place where we All right, I’ve tried medicine. I’ve tried the doctor. I’ve tried friends. Now I’m gonna pray. What if we just

Drew: become 9 1 1 Christians, right?

Tim: What if we just prayed first? What if that was our mindset? And so that’s one of my commitments, call it resolution or not for this next year is to be, to have a lifestyle of prayer, to make sure that it is something that I think about that.

I look forward to, to realize that you never inform God of anything, right? You never tell him something he doesn’t know. But he wants you to pray in the Bible. It’s very clear that we should pray because it is a relationship because he [00:23:00] desires to hear from his Children. And so that’s what was impressed upon me coming out of this prayer series.

And for fasting specifically, that’s something I started. I fast every Thursday, just breakfast and lunch. And so, I’m gonna really commit to doing something that hurts in a good way, doing something not just routine, you know, I just do it every Thursday and I can get through, I can make it till dinner.

It’s not a big deal. I wanted to do something that actually strips away the desire. And even if I have to fight through a headache and even if I have to fight through caffeine withdrawal or whatever that happens with fasting with the goal of being God, I desire you more than these things. So that’s one of the things I want to do.

Maybe I’ll do a longer fast or something. I’m going to put it before prayer. But you know, that’s for me. That’s for me to figure out both the prayer. That’s fantastic. But for you listening, it’s one of those things that, you know, wherever you’re at in life. And if you have five young kids and you’re at home and you can barely make it through the day, you know, without going insane and you just looking forward to that 30 minutes [00:24:00] of vegging out on the TV before you get to go to bed.

I mean, you’re in a different stage of life. You’re in a position where, you know, you can’t do what a retired person can do and read the Bible for two hours in the morning. Right? Like oftentimes we look at what other people are doing. And then we start to. You know, diminish what we’re able to do. But man, God just desires those five minutes you give him.

If that’s all you got and he knows your life is crazy and you’re busy that should be a time of distraction, free.

Drew: Yeah, I think what you just brought up is really valuable. So, I think it’s challenging right now for people to feel like they’re doing okay.

And the reason I say that is because when you get on any social media platform, everyone’s telling you, their secret. Of how they do it. It’s exhausting, and it’s annoying. You know, you’ve [00:25:00] got Grant Cardone, who, by the way, I think he’s a walking scam. So, whatever. I can’t stand that guy. I don’t even know this guy, so I’ll take your word for it.

Yeah, you should look him up. He’s a walking tool. But anyways. He’s like, hey you know, I don’t buy my house. I rent my house. You should never buy your house. You should never pay the bank. You should rent your home. And then, you know, you should do you and three other people should go in and buy a 500 you know, 500 home apartment or whatever complex and rent those out.

And I’m looking at our economy right now and I do real estate and I’m like, I think that’s terrible advice. That’s terrible. Like if you have a billion dollars, yeah, do whatever you want, man. Buy a plane. I don’t care. But you’re telling young 20 year olds to get with their friends who probably have very little experience.

And go in and make a huge financial investment with an unbelievable interest rate in a [00:26:00] market where it’s stalled Please don’t do that So you have him saying that then you have other people that are like, oh no buy your home every two years Move every two and a half years just buy your home every two and a half years move and you know You’ll make 150 to 180 thousand dollars every single time which You know, my wife and I have kind of done that, not planning it, but we’ve kind of done that in the last 10 years.

And I’m like, oh, I could see how that could be helpful. And then you got people that are like, let me tell you about my morning routine. I get up at 4 AM. I immediately get into a cold tub and I’m like, shut up with the cold tubs and the cold therapy. And you know what I do when I get out of the cold tub?

I get into a sauna and I’m like, well, sorry, bro. Not all of us have 10 grand. To have a cold tub, which are like 5, 000 and a sauna in our home. Some of us go to planet fitness or gold’s gym, you know, or work out at home. Some of us have kids, like you said, maybe some of us are in a phase of life where we [00:27:00] get five kids, or maybe we’re going through a divorce, or maybe we’re going through a move, or maybe we’re going through a job change.

You want me to get up at 4 a. m. It’s like, all right, so let’s all just take a moment and recognize that what Tim said is really profound in that your job is not to look at what someone else is doing, whether it be their pattern of life or their New Year’s resolution and attach yourself to it.

That’s not your role. Your role is to go before the Lord and say, what would you have me do? And here’s the thing, man, about like prayer and relationship. And, you know, cause you said, you know, I’m, I want to get, I want to get more into that. And so many people are like, I just don’t even know where to start.

I just. I don’t know how to pray, you know, and part of me is really tired of that excuse I’ve used it before and I’m tired of it. Yeah it’s all about the relationship and if I told you that I was married to my wife for 10 years But we never talk[00:28:00] if I told you I was married to my wife But we never sat at the dinner table together if I told you I was married to my wife But we’re never in the same room.

All right, you might be married. But are y’all in a relationship? I mean, that’s kind of tough to explain. I mean, you’re my friend Tim, but like what if I didn’t even have your number? What if we never talked, what if we never texted? What if we never just like send each other tik tok videos because we thought they were funny Like what if we never what if we never did that?

What if we never liked what our church is or what our personal accounts are doing on social media? What if we never commented? What if we’ve never engaged? What if there was no proof of relationship and what I’m trying to tell our listeners is This next year like you want a great new year’s resolution You want to really expand your faith.

You want to really go into 2024 knowing that God has something for you and knowing that like you’re gonna progress Just be in a relationship It’s not [00:29:00] more complicated than that. We know how to do relationships The reason we know how to do relationships is because we were created by a God who does relationships.

That’s what I love that. I love that the reason we want to do life in community is because God is a relational God. The reason we communicate and the reason we spend time with one another is because the one who created us is relational God and wants to communicate and wants to spend time together.

So, if all you do in 2024, when you hit January, for those of you listening that go, I don’t really know like even where to start, how to pray, whatever, if all you were to do. Is just pause like tim said for five minutes and maybe not even say anything But just for five minutes be opening to listening be open to hearing from god Just have your mind on the creator of the universe and just rest in that presence If that’s all you could do [00:30:00] At least you’ve started the relationship because now you’re communicating now you’re spending time now you’re connected and That’s all that it’s about.

That’s all that it’s about. So, if you don’t have a New Year’s resolution for next year, please start there. Please, because what I know, what I know is for me, everything good in my life, and I mean this, I really mean this, everything good in my life has started with moments like that. We live in a society and in a world where you see the end of the moments.

We, we see the, oh, I bought a plane. Oh, I bought a house. Oh, I bought a car. Oh, I got this new job. Oh, look at my perfect, wonderful, beautiful family. Look at my perfect, beautiful wife. Look at the career I have. Like, we all see the end result. What I am telling you is that at the beginning, of every end good result in my life.

It was a moment of connection with the father. And so that’s where I want, that’s where I want our [00:31:00] listeners to go for 2024.

Tim: That’s really good. And to realize what is going to try to steal that from you, if you, if that sounds great and you want to do it, what’s going to be the first thing that’s going to keep you off that path?

If you try to get connected with God. What’s the number one distraction in your life that’s going to keep you from that? Answer that for yourself. I know for me, it’s my phone. As much as I am a social media guy and do all this stuff, it is completely a distraction. I think that’s the number one for a lot of people.

It might be your morning routine. It might be something that you listen to or watch. It might be something that you don’t even know yet, but to recognize it when it comes and say, all right, this is, a distraction. I did not meet with my heavenly father yet. I did not have that connection with him before I started my day.

And to recognize that for what it is when I, when the last time I preached, I talked about the fact that distractions now, our attention span is eight seconds. And I’m surprised it’s eight seconds. [00:32:00] Yeah, a goldfish is nine seconds. A goldfish is nine?! So, we’re

Drew: not doing very good. Where did you find that?

Did you look that up? I looked that

Tim: up, yeah. It was like an article for distractions or I forget what I typed in, but we used to be like 15 seconds and now we’re down to eight as a people, collectively. And some people are less and some people your level of awareness is as quick as you can swipe.

Right. That’s one. Yeah. According to

Drew: my TikTok videos, the level of connection is like 1. 8 seconds. According to my

Tim: statistics, it’s like. And so, what does that mean for your prayer life? If it’s eight seconds that you’re distracted, if that’s your attention span, right? What happens eight seconds into your prayer?

Your mind is going to go. I still have this in the dishwasher. I need to order this on Amazon. I got to take the kids here in the afternoon. Your mind is going to detach from prayer after eight seconds because that’s how we’re wired. That’s what social media is doing to us. Whether we realize it or not it’s happening passively.

And [00:33:00] so that will hurt your prayer life just naturally. And so, to recognize that for what it is to say, I’m going to have a distraction free prayer, even if it’s two minutes, I’m going to have a completely distraction free prayer. I’m going to completely focus on God for two minutes and it might be really hard at first.

I know it’s hard for me. Like I, whatever, I’m a pastor and have all this stuff and no, it’s hard for me. Like we do a prayer hour on Mondays as pastors and we just walk around the sanctuary for an hour, right? That’s a tough hour to focus on prayer. And I get distracted throughout that hour multiple times, especially if

Drew: you’ve had a rough weekend,

Tim: especially if it’s a rough weekend, you just want to talk about whatever congregant stuff happened.

Right. And so also when I say I fast, you know, you’re supposed to pray when you fast. There’s days I fast and I never pray. So that’s me being real with you guys. Just to say that, hey, I get it. It’s not easy, but at the same time, I’m not going to stop fasting. I’m not going to stop praying because I fail.

I’m going to push forward and recognize my weakness and ask for God’s strength and his Holy spirit to cover the areas that I feel like I’m [00:34:00] weakened.

Drew: That’s fantastic. So, I want to know from our listeners what their new year’s resolutions are. Let us know. So, the way that they can let us know is they can email the show at eyes on Jesus podcast at outlook.

com. Of course, you can always go to any of our social media profiles, whether it be Facebook or TikTok or Instagram and comment, post there and let us know what your new year’s resolutions are. I’d love to know how many people are jumping on, maybe just trying to spend some time in prayer. I also want to know how many people are getting into the gym.

Because I want to keep track like if you’re getting into the gym I’m gonna follow up with you in February like I want to know I want to know if that’s you but yeah, really excited to see what comes from this And as always until we talk to you, go with god grow in discernment and keep your eyes on Jesus

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