Every year towards the end of December, my mom will often ask my siblings and I if we have any New Year resolutions. I often stick with the same answers (as most people have) — being more active, having healthier eating habits, working towards becoming financially savvy, etc.

I also will admit that I say these half-heartedly, as I know towards the end of March and the beginning of April, I will become more lax with myself and my determination begins to waver. So when I was informed that the topic I would be writing about was ‘time,’ I did a bit of self-reflecting, looked at my peers around me, and concluded the following: people with resolutions begin to falter because they begin to believe they don’t have enough time.

Now if we really dig deeper, in the beginning of the new year, we have a lot of intention. Our actions are intentional! We deliberately set aside time in our schedules to work out, meal prep, and put more money in the bank. We view ourselves as proactive, productive, and efficient. We are constantly going, constantly doing, and constantly planning. Then March comes around and we realize that we have been doing this constant movement for so long, and we have gotten so successful with it that it’s okay to skip a few days of our well-intentioned planned out time.

But soon these few days become weeks, then sometimes even months, and we tell ourselves that we are too busy, too tired, and too stressed. But oftentimes, our schedules did not change at all nor did we take on additional responsibilities. Proverbs 21:5 reminds us that the plans of the diligent lead to profit, while haste leads to poverty. So when we begin making our New Years resolutions, we are being well-intentioned. Several months down the line, we have not lost any time, but perhaps we have lost our intentions behind those plans.

So to all of my AAWOL sisters and other readers out there, may we be reminded this year in 2019 that God grants us all the time we will ever need to do His will, and we will always have enough time to utilize our God-given gifts.

Jerrica KF Ching lives in the beautiful state of Washington and works as a licensed mental health counselor and Asian/Pacific Islander mental health specialist at Columbia Wellness.  She graduated with an MA in Marriage, Couple, and Family Counseling from George Fox University. She continues to be a guest lecturer on the importance of recognizing and acknowledging culture within the therapist-client relationship. Her research on racial colorblindness has been published in The International Journal of Social Science Studies.