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Good morning and welcome to Failure Friday! Why? Well because apparently it’s over the course of this weekend that a sizeable proportion of us will down tools on those well intentioned resolutions we made over the New Year period.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

A poll by a Fitness Centre company last year asked 2000 of us what their resolutions were, and interestingly ‘reading more books’ topped the list.

Saving money and losing weight came second and third, with spending less time on Facebook coming in 16th. Other staple resolutions, like eating less chocolate, drinking less alcohol and quitting smoking, came  20th, 22nd and 26th respectively.

While acknowledging the comic reality of the quip, ‘I can give up smoking anytime I want, I’ve done it 20 times already’, I’m always a little sad when people who lapse once in resolve then immediately abandon their resolution altogether. Far better, I think, that we look the lapse in the eye, giving ourselves a talking to, and start with the resolution again. Failure Friday needn’t necessarily drag on into Saturday.

‘Perseverence’ is a virtue often commended in the scriptures, and ‘self control’ is one of the ‘fruits of the Spirit’ expected to be evident in the lives of followers of Christ. But so is kindness – a much undervalued virtue to my mind – and one I commend to us all. Kindness to others transforms lives for good, and kindness to ourselves permits us to fail but enables us to go on working to be the person that deep down we most want to be.

Sustaining God, continue to make us people of perseverance and self control. But also place within us the fruits of your Holy Spirit: love, peace, joy, and kindness. Create in us a greater kindness towards others, and a careful kindness towards ourselves, through Christ, our perfect example of resolve and forgiveness. Amen.