For most of us, the new year begins with high hopes for carving out a better me, a better life than what we had in the past.

I’m not the most disciplined person in the world, so I look with some skepticism on my own resolve to do better in the new year than I did in the past. I wish I was more disciplined in my eating habits. The truth is, I exercise so that I can eat what I enjoy eating. While my friends and colleagues see me as a disciplined person when it comes to exercising, the exercise is only a way to enable my lack of discipline in my eating habits.

I always hope for more discipline in my spiritual practices. While I have done better in the past year, I have much room to grow.

Several years ago, I was extraordinarily disciplined in my daily writing; I wrote an hour a day without exception. Lately, I haven’t done so well, although I ended the year with a string of two weeks of daily, one-hour-a-day writing. I’m determined to extend that into the new year.

So, as I enter this new year, I will give thanks for the habits and practices that have become meaningful parts of my life. And I will determine to make small steps of progress. And I will try to offer myself a little grace. And above all, I will give thanks for the generous, unimaginable, faithful discipline of God in loving me and all of creation.