Let’s bust a few New Year myths …

Truth matters, and starting a New Year with a fresh commitment to truth is just a wise thing to do.

R. Scott Richards also believed truth matters, and added this tidbit of an insight …

Truth matters. We can sincerely believe that human flight is possible by jumping out of a three-story window and flapping our arms, but our sincerity doesn’t make the sidewalk any softer.

So to help recalibrate ourselves to the truth, let’s bust a few myths that come with a New Year …

1. You don’t have to read your Bible cover-to-cover in one year. It seems every New Year there are some who begin a new round of boasting about how many times they have read their Bibles from the first chapter to the last in a single year, and they get rather loud about how everyone should do the same.

There’s no question that reading your Bible from cover-to-cover each year is a great Bible reading plan — but it’s not the only Bible reading plan. In fact, those who are constantly focused on reading the Bible through in a single year are often a mile wide in Bible information, but an inch deep in Bible understanding and wisdom. That’s because they are so driven to make sure they get in their daily assigned reading that they fail to STUDY the Bible, and especially to take time to go deep in different books of the Bible or sections of scripture.

It’s okay if you decide on a different Bible reading plan this year — perhaps focusing on the New Testament, or the prophets, or just going deep in one or two books, or wading into the Gospels for more focused study.

Reading the Bible isn’t a race!

The important thing is being in the Bible on a daily basis to hear from God and learn of and from Him, and it’s extremely important to make time for STUDY of the Bible. That takes time and focused effort …

A circuit-riding preacher entered one church building with his young son, and dropped a coin into the offering box in the back. Not many came that Sunday, and those who did didn’t seem too excited about what was said. After the service, the preacher and son walked to the back, and he emptied the box. Out fell one coin. The young boy said, “Dad, if you’d have put more in, you’d have gotten more out!”

To go deeper into scripture will require putting more effort into smaller portions of scripture so that you can accomplish more than reading the passages, you can actually study them.

2. It really is okay if you don’t put your goals in writing. Positive-thinking and “success” gurus insist every human being needs to set specific goals, and they become absolutely apoplectic about goals must be put in writing to be “real” goals.

Nonsense!

Of course we should all have some goals in life, but here’s the deal about goals: If you really want to turn a goal into reality, you’ll do everything you possibly can to do so whether your goal is in writing or not. That’s a lesson we see in this story from “Bits and Pieces” …

Well-known commentator and author Eric Sevarid said that the best lesson he ever learned was the principle of the “next mile.” He recalled how he learned the principle:

“During World War II, I and several others had to parachute from a crippled Army transport plane into the mountainous jungle on the Burma-India border. It was several weeks before an armed relief expedition could reach us, and then we began a painful, plodding march out to civilized India. We were faced by a 140-mile trek, over mountains in August heat and monsoon rains. In the first hour of the march I rammed a boot nail deep into one foot; by evening I had bleeding blisters the size of 50-cent pieces on both feet. Could I hobble 140 miles? Could the others, some in worse shape than I, complete such a distance? We were convinced we could not. But we could hobble to that ridge, we could make the next friendly village for the night. And that, of course, was all we had to do…”

Sevarid used the “next mile” principle many other times during his career, whether the task was writing a book or writing scripts for radio and television.

The truth is that we’re all wired differently. Some of us need to write things down (especially our goals), and some of us don’t have that need at all.

Set some goals for 2020, and if you need to write them down, then do so. If you don’t, then don’t, and do not let anyone tempt you into a sense of false guilt for not writing down what YOU don’t need written down.

3. Not only is it okay to “look back,” you can’t learn much if you don’t. Bringing in a New Year is the time you often hear a host of mantras about not looking back but, instead, only look forward to a fresh start in the New Year.

The problem with this idea is that we very often benefit by taking time to look back at the end of a year to explore what worked, what didn’t, and WHY — and then learn from our exploration. Simply put, before barreling forward we should take just enough of a rear view to learn what lessons are offered from what’s behind us SO THAT we can do better in what may be ahead.

I strongly disagree with much of what is taught about failure and it being essential to success, but we certainly can’t learn from our failures, and then reset ourselves from lessons from failures so we can succeed, without looking back and investigating what caused our failures so we won’t do that again. Dr. Warren Wiersbe states this idea succintly:

Do not say, “Why were the former days better than these?” You do not move ahead by constantly looking in a rear view mirror. The past is a rudder to guide you, not an anchor to drag you. We must learn from the past but not live in the past.

MYTH: You need to read your Bible cover-to-cover every year. BUSTED!

MYTH: You must write down your goals. BUSTED!

MYTH: Never look back, your future isn’t there. BUSTED!

Now, go have a great New Year!

Scotty