2026 - Here We Go!

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Happy New Year to all my readers, friends, family, and fans out there! I hope that you are looking forward to 2026 with excitement, enthusiasm, and expectation, just as I am for my life and family's life.

I do want to acknowledge that there are many challenges and things that are not exactly positive going on in the world, but I am going to keep this post positive and focused on goals and actions that I have and will work towards in my life.

First, the most important part of my life is my faith and being a follower of Jesus. I am making an effort to live intentionally, a life of prayer and being someone who prays consistently and constantly throughout my days with the faith that God is listening, cares for me, and is working through me in my prayers and revealing himself in ways that provide purpose, direction, and meaning to my life as well as for the things I am praying for.

I am also finishing up the last class through the Bible Project on the book or scroll of Genesis. I have not exactly gone in order from Chapter 1-50, but it has given me new insights and perspectives that have really helped me to grow in my faith and understanding about God. The classes do a very good job of not falling into the cultural war or battle that so many Christians and non-Christians get into about the interpretation about the creation story for example that I do not find helpful and this is on top of the fact that the biblical authors were not writing with these things in mind at all. They did not even have the same conception of what the earth was or that it was a globe at that time in history; the Hebrew word used is not even earth but land. I won't go down this rabbit hole anymore, but some of these things have been very helpful to me and help me to understand what is truly being communicated through Genesis and how this all applies to me, a human male writing this blog post in 2026.

I am also continuing to read East of Eden by John Steinbeck and I am getting closer to finishing it, but this story is a fictional retelling of Genesis in many ways and especially highlights the story of Cain and Abel. It highlights the word timeshel or timshol a Hebrew word found in Genesis 4:7 that most likely translates to someone having the choice or the power/ability to rule over sin and not how the King James version of the Bible translates it as "you shall or should rule over it," which does not imply a choice or free will that humans possess. This is a very significant difference in interpretation that I believe is important and I could keep going, but you can read more about this on your own, like in this article by Eliot Cosgrove, PhD from 2014.

This brings me to one of my major goals this year, which is to begin studying and learning Hebrew. This will be my third language that I actively make an effort to learn, but I inspire to be able to read the Old Testament in its original language of ancient biblical Hebrew even though this is an incredibly lofty goal. I have found a free online site and resource for studying that I am going to try to use this year: Free Hebrew. Forever. If anyone would like to start this journey with me, feel free, let me know and we can study together!

Moving on to some other goals I have for 2026 (though not an exhaustive list): I aim to run the Indianapolis Marathon in November in 3 hours 25 minutes or faster. This would be at least 12 minutes faster than my 2025 time and would put me under an 8-minute mile pace for the marathon. This will be difficult, but I am confident that I have many years left to continue improving.

Finally, I would like to talk about writing and my goals as an author. I want to continue putting my name out there as an author and let people know that I have written two novels available for purchase on Amazon. As of yesterday, I have created a professional facebook page that I am going to use to focus in on content related to my writing, novels, and my life as an author. I am also considering other social media platforms or methods I can use. I am still thinking about what to do with my third unpublished novel Clark's Legacy and have not made any definite decisions yet. I am also wanting to get back to writing by finishing a novel that I have already started, continuing with a novel that I have barely started, or starting from scratch with something completely different. I am not quite sure, but right now I am leaning on going back to a spy novel that I have started and stopped at least a few times in the last few years. I  am excited about what this year might bring as an author and hope to begin reaching a broader audience, step by step.

What are some of your goals and hopes for 2026? Feel free to comment on this post or get in touch through the contact page. Here's to 2026!