New Year’s Resolutions or Lack Thereof
The New Year is well underway. And if I’m honest, I’ve had it up to here with New Year’s resolutions. I feel like my tank for new and better and moving forward is empty. A few years of living under my belt has taught me that my intentions can be so good, but my flesh is so weak. In my day to day life, I’ve experienced the hope and excitement of making my to do list in the morning, so proud of the order and intention I’ve managed to squeak out, only to feel the disappointment and then despondency that comes at the end of the day when nothing on the list has been checked off. So why would I attempt that dreadful experiment with a whole year?
I have plenty of experience with this pattern of thinking: if I start doing this and stop doing that this year, then I will be a happier, more productive, and better version of myself. So and so did this and now look at them. I should do that too. So this year, I’m going to start doing this…and stop doing that…
And I know we all have some staple resolutions that we gravitate to each year. They tend to involve food, diet, exercise, and finances. For the Christians, I’m sure all the read through the bible in a year plans are well underway.
Here recently, I’ve seen people post on social media about their “word” for the year. Ok. I guess it’s inspiring to pick out one word to be your life’s theme for a whole 365 days. I want to check in with these people in March. By then, I bet their new words are business as usual.
Why the Grinch Stole New Years
Do you sense the New Year’s Grinch-like attitude in my tone?
Honestly, there’s really nothing wrong with the resolutions. They can be great motivators for change. A new calendar year is a great time to take account of your life, reset, and resolve to do something new, different, or better than the year before.
I truly believe my surface cynicism about New Year’s resolutions is masking something deeper. For me, I believe the problem lies in how I feel about myself when I don’t meet my new year ‘s expectations. When my resolve inevitably fails and my best-laid plans go to the wayside, I have to face the fact that I may disappoint other people. Really, I end up disappointing myself. Worst of all, I fear that I’ve disappointed God.
Why couldn’t I have willed my way through and at least kept up the New Year program until April?
So to mitigate those disappointing feelings, I often grab for the lowest hanging fruit. Small accomplishments keep me from going into despair. And those small victories can keep the inner voice silent for a while, but ultimately they can’t drown out the underlying feeling of general lack that eventually boils over. This is what happened to me a year or so ago when I turned 30 something and had to face the fact my life was slipping away while I was going through the motions everyday.
You can read about that from last year’s January entry: An Age of Discontent…the Birthday I’d Been Dreading.
New Year’s Self-Assessment Test
The questions I have to ask myself are these:
- (1) Who am I really trying to please in this New Year?
- (2) How am I trying to please this person?
- (3) What will happen if I fail?
If I’m honest, so often the answer to that first question has been myself. And so the second answer is: doing things that I think are expected of me. And lastly, if I fail, I will spend another year going through motions but secretly harboring regret and FOMO (fear of missing out). And I’ve learned by now that’s a dead end.
But this is the truth. If I want to please the LORD, the only way to do so is not by doing more things on the list. It’s not by getting more things accomplished in 2024 than I did in 2023. I can only please Him by faith.
"But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him." - Hebrews 11:6
And what will happen when I fail? What will happen when I slip out of faith and move back into a works based mindset? What must I do?
Starting Over With the Basics
I have go back to the Apostle Paul’s cry in Romans 7 when he was sick and tired of his flesh failing him.
O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! – Romans 7:24-25
And then I must confess and repent.
"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." - I John 1:8-9
“My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.” – I John 2:1-2
The next questions I have to ask and answer are: is there enough grace for me?
Has the LORD run out of compassion? Has He somehow forgotten that I am dust?
Of course not.
But when dust tries to organize itself, it fails every time. What I need is for someone else to do the heavy lifting. Thankfully, I have Someone.
For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” – Philippians 2:13
“Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” – Philippians 1:6
“And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” – Galatians 6:9
But honestly, what has caused me to faint in the past, because if I don’t recognize the patterns, I doomed to repeat them? I lose connection to the source of my strength. Somewhere along the way I begin to try and work my way towards the Father by doing all the things when ultimately, nothing in my life works at all without Him. My Father allows me to repeat this cycle as often as I need to before I come back to my right mind.
The New Sweetness of Surrender
So this year I’m going to stop focusing so much on doing, and focus more on being. And instead of being task orientated, I’m going to be person orientated. I must stay connected to the one Person that empowers my resolve. And then what I do will flow out of who I am and whose I am.
Checking items off a list is low hanging fruit. I don’t need a new list of things to do. What I really need is a new mind, a new set of eyes. I need to refocus, not on what I can accomplish in my self-betterment and approval program, but on the One who loves me the same each day, whether I check off all the boxes or not.
He is the box. He is my exceedingly great reward. And everything, all the goodness in every year flows out of Him.
So I’m not giving up on my New Year’s check list altogether, but I am surrendering my list.
And I guess my word for this year is…you guessed it: surrender.
What’s yours?
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