Despite the guilt they eventually end up causing, I actually enjoy the process of making New Year's resolutions. Even though I usually break mine by, oh, say, January 19th, there's something so hopeful, so energizing in having an annual opportunity to embark on a fresh campaign of self- improvement. I may know on an intellectual level that God’s mercies are new every morning, and that I can seize any random day to begin anew, but somehow, the day that marks the beginning of a clean, unspoiled year motivates me most.

Maybe this year I really will work out five days a week. Perhaps by some miracle I shall keep my home neat and tidy and live up to my self-imposed work deadlines. And who knows, maybe these next 12 months will actually find me spending 10 hours a week writing that book I promised myself I'd publish before 30 (this last resolution has, unfortunately, taken on a decidedly more desperate tone as that dreaded milestone approaches.) Still, for the most part, the entire ritual of resolving to overhaul my faults leaves me feeling liberated and refreshed.

And at first, this year was no different.

All the usual suspects made their appearance. Work out. Check. Eat right. Check. Watch less T.V. and read more books. Check. Pay off student loans. Check. As I sat at the kitchen table merrily drawing up my list, I pictured how charming and elegant my life would look in the new year. Not only would I be trim and fabulous-looking, my house would finally be spotless enough I could let my friends inside to see me in all my aerobicized, domestic glory!

I had mapped out a future that was almost entirely shallow. And once the Holy Spirit revealed that shameful truth, I resolved to do something about it.

When at long last I was finished forecasting and fantasizing, I carefully folded the list and placed it in the front of a journal I had resolved to write in everyday. And there it stayed, undisturbed for several weeks, until a friend inquired how my journaling was going. Sheepishly, I admitted I hadn’t opened the journal again since January 2nd. This, of course reminded me of all the other resolutions I had likewise forgotten about (that and the fact that my favorite jeans seemed to be cutting off my air supply even more since my pledge to eat right and exercise).

Not easily discouraged, I gave myself a little pep talk. I would simply reapply myself to my goals for the new year. I still had 11 months left to achieve them. And anyway, a lot of other commitments we make have a grace period — like when I graduated from college in May but didn’t have to start paying back my student loans until November — surely that concept applies to resolutions as well. I would just go over my objectives again to reinvigorate myself with some of that January 1st enthusiasm.

Rifling through piles of books, papers, soda cans and old receipts, in the office I had resolved to keep clean, I found the blank journal and the list. This time, however, my resolutions didn't leave me with quite the same feeling of exhilaration as they had when I’d drafted them a month before. And it wasn't just because I didn't really feel like getting revved up to tackle the nearest Stairmaster and eat some broccoli. As I looked over my carefully penned plans, I realized what my exercise of resolving to improve myself had really revealed — a person almost totally immersed in her own dreams, her own desires and her own life.

That's not to say I didn't have a couple of quick spiritual goals dashed off at the bottom, but any casual observer could see that my relationship with Christ and acting as His servant weren't any sort of priority. Thankfully there were no observers; the only person present to behold the irrefutable evidence of my self- centeredness was me.

I had scrawled a couple of spiritual resolutions at the end, but I didn’t relish them the way I had the others. I didn't daydream as I wrote them about the people I would lead to Christ. I didn't fantasize about how my husband would look at me when he saw my spiritual muscles growing. In short, I had mapped out a future that was almost entirely shallow. And once the Holy Spirit revealed that shameful truth, I resolved to do something about it.

I looked back over the previous few years and decided to focus on my three most glaring problem areas, asking God to help me improve.

So here are my new New Year's resolutions. They may be more than a month late, but when it comes to aligning our goals with God’s, late is definitely better than never.

1. God, I resolve to give back all the gifts you have given me. Whatever abilities you have graciously provided me, I resolve to listen for your direction on how to use them. “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord… Since you are eager to have spiritual gifts, try to excel in gifts that build up the church” (I Corinthians 12:4-6, 14:12).

2. I resolve to be less concerned with the wealth of this world and more concerned with the riches of Heaven; to care less about the clothes I am wearing today and more about the crown I will wear in eternity. “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15). “Since ... you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God” (Colossians 3:1).

3. I resolve to be lovingly relational as you are, Lord; to respond to requests for my time not as burdens to be suffered but as opportunities to be blessed through serving others. And I resolve to see the people you place in my path the way you see them — as treasures to be cherished. “Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us” (1 John 4:11-12).

Unlike going to the gym or publishing a book, the benefits of these resolutions will be with me forever. And even better — I have the strength of goal-maker helping me accomplish them.