Happy New Year!

Another year has gone by and I have so much to be thankful for...

2010 brought me my beautiful daughter, Olivia and the past year also helped  crystallize much of my future as well.

I do not want to list here some of my "resolutions" for 2011, but if I just concentrate on one thing, everything else will fall into place. That one thing, isn't a thing at all, it is God and his Son, Jesus. It is rather uncharacteristic of me to get on here and share anything of an intimate nature, but it is my one desire to live what my friend, Mike Gorman talks about often, that is, to live a cruciform life. I have failed often at this, but I really want to echo what the Apostle Paul speaks of in Philippians:

"...τοῦ γνῶναι αὐτὸν καὶ τὴν δύναμιν τῆς ἀναστάσεως αὐτοῦ καὶ [τὴν] κοινωνίαν [τῶν] παθημάτων αὐτοῦ, συμμορφιζόμενος τῷ θανάτῳ αὐτοῦ, εἴ πως καταντήσω εἰς τὴν ἐξανάστασιν τὴν ἐκ νεκρῶν.
Οὐχ ὅτι ἤδη ἔλαβον ἢ ἤδη τετελείωμαι, διώκω δὲ εἰ καὶ καταλάβω, ἐφ᾽ ᾧ καὶ κατελήμφθην ὑπὸ Χριστοῦ [Ἰησοῦ].


ἀδελφοί, ἐγὼ ἐμαυτὸν οὐ λογίζομαι κατειληφέναι· ἓν δέ, τὰ μὲν ὀπίσω ἐπιλανθανόμενος τοῖς δὲ ἔμπροσθεν ἐπεκτεινόμενος,
 κατὰ σκοπὸν διώκω εἰς τὸ βραβεῖον τῆς ἄνω κλήσεως τοῦ θεοῦ ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ."


"...to know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death;  if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,  I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 3.10-14).



So here's to 2011 and a cruciform lifestyle...cheers!