As we approach the dawn of a new year, have we attempted any soul searching? Self-assessment? 

We say and some of us have said, “Next year will be different.” 

A New Year does not mean a New You. 

Yes, a new year can mean a new you. 

However, we need to do something different in the new year to have a new you. 

First, let’s stop waiting for someone else to initiate for us what we need to initiate for ourselves. If you want it, go for it. Look to create opportunities to be a new you. 

If I may encourage us today, let’s not let “entitlement” be the fuel for our transition and/or transformation. 

The word entitlement means “the belief that one is inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment” and “the fact of having a right to something.” In either definition, having a sense of entitlement does not secure for us what we want. We must pursue it. 

We must make things happen for ourselves. 

It’s a dangerous place to believe that we are inherently deserving of something and not taking the initiative to possess what we believe we should have. It’s a disastrous place to factually have the right to something and not take possession of it. 

Entitlement without initiative leads to “self” disappointment, destruction, desolation, devastation, extermination and possibly extinction. 

This is not a common new year. We’re not only coming to the end of a month and year. 

We’re coming to the end of a decade. 

Please take a strong hard look at life, your life. Look at your successes and failures. Process the processes of each and look to improve of them both. 

True champions, sports dynasties, those who are called the G.O.A.T. (Greatest Of All Time) don’t just improve and learn from their failures. They improve and learn from their successes as well. 

This next decade, let’s go deeper, higher, and farther than we ever thought possible. 

We have to be willing to climb higher in order to go deeper. 

In high diving, there’s some troubling of the water to help the divers gauge the location of their entrance. 

When trouble arises, it’s only to help us gauge the entrance to our success. 

December 31st is our springboard to dive into deeper development. 

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen a springboard over shallow water.

 

Demetrius Moffett is Senior Pastor of Orange Church of God-Embassy of Grace, 1911 North 16th Street in Orange.