Check your azmith

We need to continuallly look at our spiritual lives

I really hate this time of the year. I know this isn’t a good way to start a sermon. It also is very different because everyone usually is high hope and has high aspirations during these times. Let me explain why I don’t like this season. It because I feel this time of season people put on a false lives and they are living in different worlds. This is where people have lost that joyous spirit and lost all the glimmer that we all love during Christmas. Also, we all place so much power in a date that will change out lives. When the New Year starts, we think that everything will change in our lives. Hence, why we make new year resolutions. It is where tons of people crowd my sacred space, call the gym, and they flood areas where they have been empty all year.

People forget that the gym has been there all year and it doesn’t take January 1st to change anything. It is just a date. Even though people try to make changes to their lives, which is admirable, majority of these people will be quitting their goals by February. It is good to have goals..don’t get me wrong. Let’s talk about some of these resuolutions. Experts have studied these new year’s resolution and they found some interesting facts.

Success/Failure rates over the first 6 months. Of those who make a New Year’s resolution, after 1 week 75% are still successful in keeping it. After two weeks, the number drops to 71%. After 1 month, the number drops again to 64%. And after 6 months, 46% of people who make a resolution are still successful in keeping it. In comparison, of those people who have similar goals but do not set a resolution, only 4% are still successful after 6 months.Overall success/failure rates According to a 2016 study, of the 41% of Americans who make New Years resolutions, by the end of the year only 9% feel they are successful in keeping them.

This means only 9% of the people you see actually keep their goals. This is what I want to talk about today. Why do we not complete our goals? Why are only 9% of people successful? I was pondering this over the holidays and I had to mediate on this. I believe it’s because we don’t check our azimuth. Back in basic, my Drill Sergeants stressed on re-checking our azimuths about every 100 meters. I didn’t understand this until later. Did you know that if your 1 degree off in your azimuth that over the course of 60 miles that you will be over mile off course? Such a miniscule error can throw you off course dramatically. In the movie Sahara, it was briefly mentioned. The character was saying that our legs are not the same length and that error throws off our direction. This in result throws off course and we end up in a different location than what we wanted. So we have to always re-check out azimuths.

There is no difference between our physical lives and our spiritual lives. We need to continually re-check out spiritual lives. Psalm 32:8 “I will instruct you and show you the way to go; with My eye on you, I will give counsel.” The great thing about your spiritual life is that God knows the azimuth and the end