This is my first blog entry and I’m already looking forward to writing my second one. That’s because I’ve learned that often the hardest thing we do in life is start something or end something. The middle is not that tough…we just do it. But starting and ending things…now that’s a different story.

It’s the things we start and end that determine what we spend our lives doing…the middle stuff. Since this middle stuff is our life, we need to start and end the right things. Otherwise we spend our lives on lesser things.

“One day soon I’m going to…” is a thought we have too often. One day I’m going to start spending more time with my family, start going to church, start eating better, start exercising, start having a daily quiet time, start taking my vacation, start a relationship with Jesus. Each of these would make life better, but for some reason we keep putting off starting what we know is good for us.

“I know I need to stop…” is another thought we have too often. Like ending a bad relationship before we say “I do,” or ending a bad habit that is slowly killing us. There are things each of us need to end, but we just keeping doing whatever it is.

I’m starting this blog and my goal is for it to be helpful to those reading it. What am I ending? At this moment, that is a struggle. Not the what but the will to do it.

Maybe we can find the will together. It’ll be 2012 in two weeks…a great time for starting and ending things. Doing so will make our lives better next year.

What do you need to start? What do you need to end?

Pastor Steve Hogg