Are you giving thought to writing up a list of New Year’s resolutions for yourself as we prepare to bid farewell to 2006? If your list of resolutions will include goals like spending more time in prayer, fighting sinful habits, and being more Christlike in your actions, you’re in good company: a post at Out of Ur talks about the personal resolutions that Jonathan Edwards tried to follow in his daily spiritual life. Here’s a few samples from his list:
Resolved, Never to lose one moment of time, but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can.Resolved, Never to do any thing, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life.
Resolved, To ask myself at the end of every day, week, month and year, wherein I could possibly in any respect have done better.
Resolved, Never hence-forward, till I die, to act as if I were any way my own, but entirely and altogether God’s.
Resolved, Never to give over, nor in the least to slacken my fight with my corruptions, however unsuccessful I may be.
Those sound like worthy personal goals (although his resolution to spend 13 hours a day studying the Bible sounds a bit extreme.) Read more at the post above.
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December 29, 2006 at 10:14
Jonathan Edwards WAS an extreme person. I did a report on him at school and when I started to do research I found myself completely overwhelmed by the amount of literature this man wrote!
Sinners in the hand of an Angry God, for example, happens to be among those writings. He was a philosopher and theologian all wrapped into one man and he was one of the two most influential men in the Second Great Awakening (if I remember correctly).
Definitely extreme.