How's that working for you? Cynicism | Nathan Lawson

Despite the slight disappointment that all of the prophecies uttered by Marty

McFly in Back to the Future 2 have not quite yet come about.

We don't have flying cars or flying hoverboards.

There is something about the new year where there is always new possibility.

Now, my wife and I were married on New Year's Eve because of our great love

for one another and because of the way the tax law works.

You've got to squeeze it in before the calendar year changes over.

And love. And we celebrated 21 years. And I think one of the hardest things

as we've gotten older about celebrating New Year's is staying up till midnight

gets increasingly difficult as you get older.

Like it no longer feels like quite the gem of fun than it was when we did lock ins growing up.

So by show of hands, how many people stayed up till midnight on New Year's Eve?

You got to see it come in. Did anybody see the ball drop?

Rather ironic, because that's the one thing I'm hoping not to do in 2026, drop the ball.

And yeah, with some reason, that's how we choose to symbolically celebrate.

We're going to watch a giant ball in New York City of all places.

Staying up at midnight is tough, but just watching that clock change over.

And I know there's nothing in the Bible about New Year's. It's just a date on

a calendar, any days as good as any others.

But there's still something about it. As a reminder that this is the perfect

opportunity to put into place some new changes, some new habits,

to have some moments of self-examination to say, what have I accomplished over the last year?

How far have I come and where is God taking me next?

And those questions are things we see the Bible filled with.

So New Year is an opportunity to kind of live out that part of the gospel story.

There is a scene, not many, but there is a scene where we see someone in the

New Testament awake at midnight, and it's the Apostle Paul. He is in prison. He's next to Silas.

He's been in Philippi doing the Lord's work.

He's out there trying to plant a church where there wasn't even a synagogue.

Unlike some of the other cities where there was established leaders and people

who were wealthy enough to get together and put a building in place,

This just had some ladies who met down by the riverbank for prayer,

and Paul was helping to establish a church there.

And while he was doing it, this girl comes up who is a slave,

and she's demon-possessed.

She can predict the future in at least some sense, or more importantly for the Apostle Paul.

She's really annoying. She's just going around shouting things near him.

And at some point Paul has enough and he casts the demon out of this girl and

it causes such this stir that he ends up being thrown in prison.

Now, there's a lot of things where I think if I were the Apostle Paul, I would be frustrated.

All those ministers sitting back in Antioch, a comfortable Antioch,

things are going well there, back in Jerusalem, and yet here he is on the front line of the gospel,

doing the right thing, and it seems like everything is not going so well.

But, of course, it's the Apostle Paul, And so it's midnight.

He is chained up in prison. It seems like a perfect opportunity for karaoke.

And he breaks into singing. I don't know if he's leading the whole jail in there

in song of like 99 bottles of whatever.

It doesn't specify, but I suspect it was hymns as he's singing to pass the time,

but also to remember that there is nothing that can happen in this world that

will take him away from his purposes.

Have you been around someone whose roots are so deep, whose conviction is so

permeating who they are, that when they are predicting what's going to happen

in 2026, there is no comma, but what about?

There's no asterisk on it saying, well, I'm hoping this year,

but depends on the economy, depends on my neighbors, depends on my family, depends on my teens.

All those little footnotes that we have that could you imagine being around

the kind of person whose their conviction is what's driving everything else,

that they are certain that even if I'm in prison,

this must be part of what God wants for me.

We're talking about the new year and of all the mentalities we could adopt,

that gospel-saturated mentality, because we want a new year,

not the same year repeated.

There are fights that we had this last year, choices that we made in the past

where we don't want to keep spinning our wheels and going through the same thing

over and over. We're going to have the same arguments, the same stress with people.

We would like it to be a genuinely new year.

And in order for that to happen, it's going to be a good opportunity to stop and ask some questions.

And the title of this series is A Great Question to Ask, even if you don't hear

a lot of what else happens in the sermon. This is just a great question to ask.

So how's that working for you?

Like, how's it been going so far? How's your method?

Based on what you've been watching in the evening and how you're spending your

time, if you look at your calendar and how you're making decisions both financially

and what you're allowing yourself to schedule, how's that working for you?

There are just some times where you have to take a step back and say,

okay, before we decide what we're going to do next, what have I been doing that

has been working or maybe not working so well?

So being from a rather large family, even when we were over in Zimbabwe,

we would always use a speed queen washer because it had the two characteristics

that are fundamental to be an appliance in a Lawson household.

Massive size and durability that's kind of what we're going for

in our house no features no buttons no steam just

two things big and durable but in both times when i've had them what at some

point in it it would begin to separate the drum the little seal there would

start to rip and man you have not heard somebody grumble until you hauled something

all the way in from south africa to have it start breaking at a certain point,

And, of course, I would grumble about, you know, the power in Zimbabwe is not

reliable and blah, blah, blah, and the way the teens use this thing.

Can you believe how blah, blah, blah, and going on and on.

And when I'm selling the second time, I have someone come up and say, I see your problem.

And apparently I had not removed all of the bolts that they put in it when they're shipping.

And as he shows me how to remove it, I said I had no idea. And he says,

it's on the first page of the manual. And I look at it and say, ha, so it is.

You see the thing about it is up until that point i was

under the impression that it was how the teens were operating

it was the power of the country which are have

their own frustrating points but in reality

i was operating on a faulty set of instructions right the way i was thinking

about the world the way i reacting was not properly suited and the question

i want to ask you going in to 2026 is perhaps it's a good time to stop and to

alter some of the way that you are thinking about things going into the year.

Because what occupies your mind will eventually be what occupies your life.

What you think about is going to determine how you react when things are not

going according to plan.

Right? So I mean, just using a very general illustration, if you were to go

home today and your couch were to be removed for reasons outside of your control

and they were to pull in plastic folding chairs for you to watch the game in,

you would be, if you're like my household,

mildly frustrated, right?

You would be complaining about how uncomfortable it is and how the couch is

not here and, you know, I'm going to need to get another one.

We're on the marketplace.

But those same people, if you were to have tickets to the Browns and Bengals

game at one o'clock, would sit in nearly identical solid plastic chairs near

Giddy with joy and excitement at the opportunity.

I'm just suggesting it's possible the way you're thinking about it may have a bigger impact.

On what it is that God is doing in your life, then you might realize what you

occupy your mind with will eventually occupy your life.

So it's not just I got frustrated in the evening when I got home,

but what assumptions were I making that allowed me to get frustrated in the first place?

What is my rubric that was determining this was a good day or a bad day?

And the place we're going to turn to kind of look at this question,

we're going to start in Psalm chapter 1.

Psalms 1 · chapter mention

You see, the book of Psalms has always been this manual of prayer,

both for ancient Israel and the early church.

It's about how to pray and how to worship.

And it is filled with different kinds of prayers and songs.

Some are designed to teach, telling stories about God's faithfulness in Egypt

and through the wilderness.

Some of it is designed to show you a model prayer when somebody's hurting or

doubting or struggling. Sometimes there's prayers in there about how to handle

when you're just overwhelmed with joy. There's all kinds of situations.

But Psalm number one is classified as a wisdom psalm because it's going to describe

the way that God has for you in life in terms of there are two choices in front of you.

Now, the writer is going to recognize that there are actually thousands of choices.

How many sports do you sign up for? What do you do for which credit card company

to use? and all these questions, but if you were to take a step behind all of

the choices that you're facing in 2026, there's a question to ask first.

What kind of path are you on? And that's what makes this classified as a wisdom psalm.

So if you want to turn and follow along, I hope you have a Bible with you.

There is just something wonderfully refreshing about reading it from God's Word,

where there's no beeps and flashes and notifications. But if you have one, even on your phone.

Anywhere you can get God's Word is a good place to get it. But I want you to

follow along. Here's what it says.

Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked,

stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers.

No, but those who delight in the law of the Lord, who meditate on it day and

night, that person is like a tree planted by streams of water that bears its fruit in season.

His leaf does not wither, and he prospers in all that he does.

Now, you didn't have to hear all that text to hear the phrase,

I want some of that for 2026.

I want to say that I could prosper regardless of the situation the country goes in, up and down.

I would like to say that I could bear fruit in season. He says a person that

we're going to describe here is on two potential paths.

One is listening to the voices of culture, is taking counsel from what we're

going to describe here in a moment, those who are wicked or sinners or even

mockers. and it's going to give us a contrasting way to live.

Now, when it opens up and says, blessed is the one, happy, fortunate is the one who does this.

We're not suggesting that if you do certain things, you can earn God's favor or approval.

It doesn't work like that. But at the same time, the story of the gospel and

the resurrection of Jesus means that God not only forgives you of your sins,

but invites you to begin to follow him and transform all,

even the littlest details of how you live and think about your life.

Now, when it lists out those who, blessed is the one who does not keep in the

step with the wicked, I think all of God's people would adequately say, amen.

Well, you don't have to go real long or know a lot of people to know that there

are a lot of ways to make your life a lot harder than it needs to be.

And so blessed is the one, happy is the one who doesn't listen to that kind of nonsense, right?

I don't know what you were planning on doing with your tax return,

but if you said, you know,

I have a cousin of mine who made a bunch of money at the casino,

so I'm thinking what I'm going to do to really maximize my investment this year

is I'm going to go to the slots and I'm going to go really, really coin it this year.

And you would say, that sounds like a really fast way to stupid.

That's what that does sound like.

Like, you know people where you've looked at and you're like,

look, I don't care if it's called Draft Kings or it's just a way to get into

sports. You know enough people that have lost money that you're like,

yeah, that's dumb. I'm not doing that.

Like wicked people who are living in ways that are absolutely antithetical to

the gospel. Some of those are more obvious.

Things that if you can't do dry out January because that's a big burden in your

life, both your doctor, psychologist and the Bible will tell you, yeah, that's a problem.

It may be time to go into a different direction if you want to continue to thrive in life.

But then it starts to list out some other ones where things get a little more uncomfortable.

Because it also says to watch out for those who just stand in the place of sinners.

Stand in the way. I didn't say I was doing it. I was just near it.

I didn't do it or anything.

I was just, you know, I mean, these are fun people. We were just hanging out.

I wasn't going to go along with it necessarily.

I'm not as bad as some people, by the way.

It starts to list out people that aren't fully participating and maybe not quite

as bad as Wicked. They're not saying they're perfect, but they're good guys.

And that last one who sits in the company of Mockers.

Now, I don't think Mockers adequately gets the flavor because that group is

a lot more fun to hang out with than you might think.

My family's favorite version of A Christmas Carol is, of course,

The Muppets' Christmas Carol because it's objectively the best one.

And one of the reasons it's so great is The Ghosts of Jacob Marley is done by

two different people, right?

It's Jacob and Robert Marley in the Muppet version, played by those classic Muppet hecklers.

What is their names? Statler and Waldorf. And they, throughout the Muppet show, were the OG trolls.

They would watch shows and artists and give sarcastic comments from the side.

And they're one of my favorite characters because it is hilarious to be around

somebody who's sniping and being sarcastic against somebody else.

But unfortunately, as a culture, rather than a few moments of a side,

heckling has become the way that we digest news and information.

We have just grown increasingly hostile toward one another and we have to be

careful because right here in Psalm chapter one, it's saying,

be careful that you don't make it a habit and we have to be careful

to listen to mockers. And if that's true, the vast majority of the way we get,

I don't care if it's called a news network, the way they do it now is driven

by the same algorithms that drive everything else, make someone as outraged as possible.

We've just crossed over in a line in history where you are no longer using social

media. Social media is using you.

That you just got to be careful because if I were to tell you,

hey, listen, we were thinking about having a meeting this evening. You guys want to come?

And you're like, yeah, we can come. We want to hear about what's going on.

I just want you to know the guys organizing the meeting are really,

really like it if we all could fight at the meeting.

So they sort of set it up to try to get people to be angry with one another.

How many of you would go to that meeting?

You would say, no, I don't want to go with a meeting where they're intentionally

trying to make people fight.

Here's the newsflash. All algorithms are specifically designed to elicit exactly

the same response because that's how to drive engagement.

If you look at the way Christians talk about one another, on the smallest issues,

they're willing to split hairs and burn the whole ship down.

He said Charlie Kirk. He didn't say Charlie Kirk. He said it too much.

He said it too little. He talks about politics too much.

Not enough. He did this. He did that. That's why we're out.

And when a single issue, then a person gets online and writes a reaction video.

Nobody clicks on a reaction video that says, Yeah, I think he's pretty much all right.

Nobody clicks on that one. They only click on the one that says outrage, apostasy, burn it down.

It's no longer. And people click. Can you believe what happened when?

And it is a constant tirade where mocking has become the sole tone.

And our own culture then becomes more and more suspicious of one another.

You see, the problem with the cynical attitude is that over time,

the very things that some skepticism is important.

You don't want to be like Buddy the Elf walking around. It's funny in a movie,

but you would probably get taken advantage of in real life.

But if you continue down a line of skepticism too far,

there becomes a level of suspicion where it becomes hard to trust anyone in

community, where people have separated themselves from so many churches,

that churches on the peninsula that I would consider to be brothers and sisters in Christ,

there are some of our own members who walk around imagining that they are our

enemies rather than our allies in the faith.

We have to be careful because the model that God is going to call us to is going

to be one of deep conviction, but not conviction driven from the seat of mockers.

That we're going to pray for the success of Coastal, and we're going to pray

for the success of Liberty Live, and we're going to pray for the success of

other churches in our movement, like Northampton, because if you call on the

name of Jesus, even if we disagree over some things,

they're not a good reason to split the body of Christ into pieces.

And this opening warning saying, let me tell you what it's like to walk toward

a gospel-centered life where it's bearing fruit in season and there is success in what you do.

And part of it is distancing ourselves from voices that seem to have nothing to offer but criticism.

There are points where we need conviction and to draw the line,

but one must be cautious.

We also want to look at our own brain's temptation, that as we've listened to

negative voices long enough, our own mind seems to be on the lookout for it.

As one who has struggled off and on with anxiety, I can tell you that quickly

anxiety becomes a game of whack-a-mole, where you survive one holiday event

and one crisis, and another one just pops right back up, and you try to solve

that one, and another one pops back up.

It almost feels at a certain point like your brain wakes up in the morning and

says, look, I know we're supposed to be worried about something.

What is it? And I'm sure there's something going wrong that's terrible coming

up. I'm sure we're going to mess it up.

What is it? And if that's your approach, it isn't just managing this soccer

season or this test or this grade.

It's the very mentality that seems to be constantly hungry for that kind of

anxiety to drive itself to its next action that needs to be questioned.

There is a way to be successful that is not driven by a kind of ambition that

leads to discontent, brokenness, and anxiety about our own place in the world.

Well, it goes on to describe the seats that are meant to shape us.

The things that if you're going into 2026, here is in general terms,

the kind of life in the beginning of Psalms to walk toward a life of prayer and devotion in God.

Here's what it looks like. But those who delight in the law of the Lord and

who meditate on his law day and night.

Well, a couple of words perhaps need defining here. When we say the law in the

Old Testament, except for a few cases where it's very specialized,

we don't just mean the do's and don'ts of the Bible.

When they said the word law, they don't just mean the Ten Commandments and all

the other regulations in Leviticus.

When they say the word the law, it also means the word, the commands, the guidance of God.

They would just as easily talk about the story of Abraham being part of the

law of God or God guiding Moses as part of the law. This is how it's quoted in the New Testament.

So we're not just talking about meditating on those precepts,

but the whole story and guidance of what it means to follow God's direction.

You could say that one who delights in seeking out the direction and ordinances,

commandments of God, this is the kind of person that sets himself up to grow

into the person God made him to be.

But it doesn't just do it. It doesn't just put in the hours of study.

It specifically says the word delight.

And I love that that's how it's described. Because I could think of a time where

it says, you know, don't hang out with the mockers. Instead,

you need to do the right thing.

And the right thing means you need to read it every night, whether you want to or not.

And you need to get through it. And I know some of you may have grown up in

homes where devotional books were brought from the 1700s and you like made your

way through it, but it was tough.

And you're like, well, this is how you do the right thing. And part of how you

know you're making Jesus happy is it's like vegetables. If it's unpleasant,

it's probably good for you.

This is asking for something entirely different. It's saying one who takes delight

and joy in pursuing God's life for them,

who finds a way to find the voices and the resources of other faithful people

that are talking to a situation you are walking through and saying,

I want to wake up and decide to listen to this voice because it is drawn toward

joy and peace and not that one.

What would it take in your household to not just talk about the law and direction

of God in your household in the year to come, but to take pleasure in it.

To be the thing that people look forward to in the morning and look forward

and are excited about in the evening.

But it does mean that just like that first verse, there are probably some things

you're going to have to take off the list first.

I heard one leadership consultant say when somebody walks into his office and

he's talking about a new initiative he wants to start, he always opens by saying,

before we talk about what you want to add,

we first need to ask, what are you willing to take off your schedule? What have you canceled?

And that's a tougher conversation. But there's no way to add time for devotion

into an already overcrowded and anxious schedule.

Some things will have to give way first.

To make space for it in your own life, is to find a way to say,

I want to find joy in what God is doing in my life.

Notice the transformation that can take place. You see,

Paul, when he's in that prison at Philippi, what's going to happen is at midnight,

God is going to send an earthquake and it's going to break Paul out of prison,

but Paul will decide not to leave,

but instead to wait, which is crazy that God would both break him out of prison

and that Paul would say, No, I'm good. We're still here.

I'm just going to sick it out. And he just waits anyway.

And while he does that, the jailer is so overwhelmed with how odd Paul is that

he says, I've got to know. What do you know that I don't?

And Paul is going to share the gospel with this Philippian jailer and this one

person and his whole household will be baptized.

When Paul is later reflecting on this event in Philippians 1,

years later, he's writing a letter back and what he says to them is,

I just thank God every time I remember you, because when I think of Philippi, I just think of joy,

which is nuts, because if I had been thrown in prison in any city,

and the person mentioned the name of that city,

the memory that would come to mind might not be joy.

If I had gotten thrown in prison in Johannesburg, and someone said,

you know, in my prayers for Johannesburg, every time I remember,

what jerks they are there.

I mean, you would think that at least some he would mention when he's talking

about what happened there, about the hardships that he suffered.

I was faithful to the gospel even when things were difficult,

but instead, without lying, he says, I am just overwhelmed with joy at thinking

of the good things that were accomplished because of what God was doing.

And that, I just think, reminds us that as you're looking back over this past year,

if your primary focus was saying, in what areas did I grow closer to God,

it may be helpful not just to focus on those areas of pain and hardship,

as important as they are, but instead to focus on those areas where you,

even in the smallest ways,

moved and took a step toward what God was doing in your life.

That the reason that Paul is filled with joy is because he said,

yeah, I was in prison, that was a real thing, wasn't it? But did you think about it?

I bet there's no other way that jailer would have even heard the gospel if I hadn't been there.

Talk about a captive audience. That's your preacher joke for 2026.

It's just true that when you think back over this year, you have the ability

to change what the narratives mean.

Some of you have heard me tell the story before of when Boaz was at Parris Mountain

Park in Greenville, South Carolina, and he falls off this bridge into what he

imagined as a mighty river.

It's probably like six inches deep, but in his mind, it was huge and it was

freezing and he's tiny and he falls off into it.

And immediately his older brother, Noah, jumps down and pulls out him from,

you know, wiggling on this bridge and falling off when he shouldn't have.

And you can see on that face of that two and a half year old, three year old.

He knows something big has just happened. He is wearing an oversized shirt from

his brother. He is freezing. He is hurt. He is scared.

Something happened here. And he's trying to talk through it with the adults.

And he says, yeah, I just fell off a bridge. I fell into the river.

I fell in the river. And he's like going through this. I'm like,

oh my goodness. Like, I didn't know that thing could happen.

Like, I thought the world was safer than this.

And you can tell that he's starting to work out what does this story mean.

And as quick as we can, we begin to say, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You fell in the river. but isn't that amazing

that no matter even if you fall you have brothers around you

that would catch you and rescue you and he says oh yeah yeah

yeah i mean of course i have brothers who would rescue me that's what it means

to be in this family we help each other out which means that as he's telling

this story there's a lot of lessons he could take away he could take away a

lesson that would say the outdoor is dangerous that bridges are not safe that

i'm not reliable that I need to focus more.

But instead he chose that what this story means is that if I get in trouble,

I have people around me that would help me out.

It became not a falling story, but a saving one. As you are telling the narratives

of 2025, it is important that you remember that some of your stories about falling

were a reminder that God didn't let you fall as far as you deserved.

That you're going to remember that as much, even though you didn't grow as much

as you wanted, there was still growth that happened.

You are already here in church. It's 2026 and you have perfect attendance.

Congratulations. You're doing amazing.

That when your heavenly father looks at the smallest step you take toward him,

he is rejoicing in heaven because

he loves you and longs for you to live into the life he made you for.

That when you look back, you take delight on the direction of God's law,

not because you are not reading it saying, oh boy, here's one more thing I'm

supposed to be doing that I'm not doing right.

To take delight in it is what an opportunity to try out to trust God in this

area, to try out what it looks like to trust God's peace and God's joy,

to whether it's finances or addiction or living into community with others,

God designed you for this life and he delights when you take a step toward Him.

But it's also going to talk about meditating on it day and night.

Now, that word meditate is not something that I grew up doing.

It just means to think about something often that it takes a little bit of time.

I like that when the Psalms is opening up in this short, beautiful prayer about

what it means to live a life, to pursue God, it doesn't say,

well, they don't listen to the mockers.

Instead, they accept all the answers that we've already figured out and they know that we're right.

It's very clear to say that what it means to pursue God is an ongoing conversation

about working out what this means, because God's Word does not have a clear

answer for every single question you are facing in 2026.

I've looked in it, and I'm just telling you, there's no verse in here that says

how old a teen should be when you give them a smartphone.

Not one verse says that. There's not one in here that says how many sports is

too much, or how many AP classes is too many, or how many hours you should be working.

What you're going to have to do is read through God's faithfulness.

Read through the example of Jesus in a way that changes your own mind and in

cooperation with his spirit day by day, trust and learn, well,

this is what faithfulness looks like to me today.

It's a Psalm that implies there is going to be an ongoing working out of what

it means to follow Jesus.

That the people of God have just never been one to say that we have everything figured out.

It was handed down to us. There's nothing left to learn or study and we're done.

You just have to learn it, and then you're pretty much good to go.

It has always been a story of the testimony of Scripture lived out faithfully

in the lives of Holy Spirit-driven people.

But it does say that he is like.

A tree who is planted by streams of water.

That amongst all the other voices out there, and there are some great Christian

resources out there, some people who can help with any doubts you're facing.

We've talked about Wes Huff, a great YouTube channel about why you can trust Scripture.

John Mark Homer, if you want to talk about what it means to live faithfully

in a hurried and busied world.

There's just lots of incredibly helpful voices out there, but none of them are

a replacement for making sure that you are basing it on God's Word itself.

And while it is difficult and challenging, it is not meant to be done alone.

God did not hand out Bibles, send you out into the desert to stare at your own

belly button while you have epiphanies about how you're supposed to read Job.

If you found it difficult, congratulations, you are in great company.

Many people have, because you were meant to read and study and wrestle with

it alongside of God's other people.

If you have not already signed up for Rooted, it is not too late.

Because 2026 will simply be vastly better if you put yourself instead of a community

of mockers available via smart moan and media,

but instead get into a circle of others where on a daily basis,

you're asking some bigger questions about what do I believe about God? I mean, I don't know.

I haven't thought about it a while. I guess, I don't know. I have to think about it.

What do I believe about God and suffering? I don't know. I probably should do some thinking on that.

And you're going to wrestle with those questions alongside of other faithful people.

Not because you need to sign up having had all the answers, but because in working

it out together alongside one another, God's spirit will speak and move and guide in your life.

We want to be the kind of people who are curious with deep roots,

that we just acknowledge that there is just so much that God may want to teach and learn.

We wake up with wonder, not because we can tell you all the things that we're

reacting against, but because we can tell you what we're chasing after.

But because if there was nothing to be angry about, I would be no less excited

about coming together and to take one step closer to our Heavenly Father.

We do not want to be defined by what we are against, but instead who we are pursuing.

It just needs to be a year in 2026 where we don't adopt the voices and tone

of how the world wants us to talk about Christianity.

Christianity with anger and division and looking for places where people are

outraged and split and instead say, when it's ever possible,

who can I pray alongside?

I want to be intellectually hospitable, looking at the best in someone else's

view and trying to find common ground as we all struggle to go closer to our Savior in heaven.

And if there comes a time where someone, I have to say that someone has gone

too far, that I'm not sure about how they view scripture, that has to be done

with a broken heart and not a raised and angry voice.

Because you see, I want roots that go down into a stream. I want to be giving

life from a Savior, not in reaction to what's going on around me,

but because of what God is doing in and through me.

And so here we are in 2026, the very first year.

And I don't know what your relationship with New Year's resolutions are.

I think a year is a bit ambitious. You might want to do a three-week resolution

just to kind of get things off on a good foot, but making some space where you

begin to say, you know what?

I do need to cut back on these voices in my life. I do need to consider signing

up, if not for Rooted, then maybe celebrate recovery or showing up in one of the other programs.

I need to stop saying, I will do it one day and say, you know what?

Life's not going to get any easier. There's a great verse in Ecclesiastes chapter

Ecclesiastes 11:4

11, verse 4, that says, the person that stares at the clouds with the seeds

in their hand, the farmer who's waiting until the weather is perfect,

not too hot, not too cold.

It's not going to rain too much. It's just not going to rain too little when

they are 100% sure that for five weeks, the weather is going to be perfect.

Those people are left holding seed forever because it's never quite the right time.

You're never 100% sure. Your life will not get any simpler than it is right now.

And this verse is saying, look, if you keep staring at the sky,

waiting for the things to line up, you're not going to plant anything.

It is just time to say it's enough.

Today it starts. So I'm going to take one step closer.

I'm going to find someone to talk to about making that decision.

I'm going to find a group to be a part of. I'm going to stop and waiting for it to happen.

And I'm going to make it happen by taking one more step today.

It may be an imperfect step. It may not be everything that you're hoping for the year.

But you say, yeah, but as far as today is concerned, I'm going to take one step

closer to putting my roots down into a stream that gives life and not anxiety and worry and anger.

Thanks for listening. If you're near Yorktown, we'd love to see you in person.