Looking Up: A New Year Is Begun

I'm nearly two weeks into this year with already little to show in regard to my only resolution.

To focus on God entirely is not as easy as it once was, for whatever reason.  Perhaps it's the sleep and work schedule.  Perhaps it's the somewhat unfamiliar ward.  Cause still unknown, the bottom line is that I'm struggling to keep my commitment to myself.

I refer to it as a commitment to myself (as opposed to a commitment to God) because I recognize I am much more strict with myself in regard to failure and success than He is with me.  It's not always kind, and certainly not my strong suit, but it gets better results.  Maybe.  Or maybe the truth is I can't bear the thought of letting Him down yet again, and so I aim to disappoint someone I hold in lower regard.

All of this thinking, however, is quite backward.  It should be such that I'm giving the best of myself to the greatest light possible and expecting the most help I can get as a response.  Already to begin my quest, my eyes are fixed inward.  This seems rational, as this is a journey of self-improvement, but the reality is that my eyes have been fixed inward for far too long.

When wresting with the concept of "looking up," I find myself at a loss due to the fact that human nature is selfish.  It would be easy to say, "So overcome the natural man," but it's not that simple.  All nature is selfish.  All living things perform acts solely for their best interest.  It is, in fact, impossible to do something that isn't in your best interest.  "Now wait," you say.  "I donate to charity.  How is that selfish?"  My response is simple:  What you wanted more than that x-box was for a family to have some food.  While that's pretty altruistic, the fact remains that you were more interested in feeding the hungry than playing games.  You feel better now than you would have if you hadn't donated.  You included someone else in the equation, sure, but it is, in the end, about you.  Your wants.  Your feelings.  Your happiness.

That being said, I know that whatever I choose is because it's in nobody's best interest but my own.  This is quite frustrating when the goal is to look outside myself.  My solution is to, if nothing else, reach a point where God is in all my equations.  This of course presents another problem because God is in everything, whether I invite Him or not.  The answer, then, is not to include God in everything (how presumptuous to think I have any control over where He will or will not be,) but to look to God in everything.

This will be a huge challenge as I think I'm quite clever.  But I will work hard to empty my hands and lift up my eyes.  I wonder how far this can go.  I will be blogging on this occasionally for updates as well as an amusing way to track progress.