It is time once more to live through the annual learning process of writing the correct date on documents.

If you are like me, I stumble and scratch out the date for at least two weeks before I mostly get it right. It is not so embarrassing these first couple of weeks of the year when everyone else is in the same boat. It gets worse as January lingers on and the rest of the world has made the transition to 2012.

No doubt, there will be that day mid-month when I’m still scratching a line through 2011. Behaviors and habits are hard to change.

That is why New Year’s resolutions should be renamed New Year’s “intentions” or New Year’s “wishes”. Behaviors and habits – especially the bad ones – die hard.

As I fumble with getting the date right, I wonder what other behaviors and patterns in my life need adjustment. This is essentially a spiritual question. What behaviors and patterns are consistent with my beliefs about God, myself and the world that God has made? What changes might be made in my behaviors, in the way that I treat others, in the way that I worship and pray, in the manner that I practice my faith that will bring me closer to God, my neighbor and my true self?

As a Christian, I wish that in this newly-minted year that I will be a little more like Jesus. I wish that my prayers and worship will be without stopping. I wish that my generosity will grow as I give and share my blessings in more concrete ways. I wish that I will come to better appreciate the presence of God in the place where I work and live. I wish. I wish. I wish.

Whereas all these things are good intentions, they all run the risk of being forgotten once I get the calendar year right. There is more romance and less “resolve” in these resolutions. It becomes all too easy to settle back into the patterns of the past; which although they have sparked the intention to change, they have yet to make much of an actual impact.

What is needed is something more than wishing on a star … what is needed is a renewed resolve to be the person that God has created me to be.

Let me suggest starting with a daily return to the most basic of biblical truths – God has created me and all that exists. How I respond to the life that God has given is important. Today presents me with an opportunity to live out my faith in a real and tangible way. Today presents me with the opportunity to break the lifeless habits of the past. Hard as it may be, fail as I might, I can choose to live this day with gratitude and thanksgiving. Actions of thankful living and generosity need to accompany the way I answer these questions if they are ever going to make a change in the way I live out my faith.

As a pastor, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out the importance of living out our spiritual life in the context of community. Our resolve to live the life that God created us to live is strengthened as we gather with others.

Communal worship is an important way of beginning each week with gratitude and thanksgiving – especially if we are having a difficult time with selecting these behaviors. Being involved in outreach projects, a critical part of most congregational life, gives us the opportunity to live beyond patterns of self-interest and self-centeredness.

2012 – as a year it is just starting to be written. During these opening weeks of transition and lingering resolutions is a golden opportunity to make some positive changes in our spirituality and in the way that we worship/pray with others. May we all have a renewed resolve to seek those things that bring life, for in that journey we are bound to encounter the Creator of life itself.

(Rev. Walt Lichtenberger is a pastor at St. James Lutheran Church in Burnsville. He is one of several area pastors who write for “Spiritual Reflections,” a weekly column appearing in this newspaper.)