Resolutions

Resolution.
We hear that word quite a lot this time of year.
Resolution is a course of action determined or decided on.

We make promises to ourselves.
Promises to ourselves, for ourselves, depending on ourselves for their success.
Resolutions are difficult to keep by ourselves.

That is why the new year begins with such high hopes.
High hopes to lose that ten pounds, read that stack of books, call that long-lost friend.
We begin the year with determination and fortitude.

Then something happens by early February.

The trip to the gym has roads paved with excuses rather than macadam.
The stack of books grows instead of diminishes.
The extra pounds from Thanksgiving to Christmas will be worked off in the spring.

Advertisements cater to the short-lived determination in all of us.
Beginning December 26, you will find sales on exercise equipment and apparel.
Playing on our sensitivities, the advertisements go for our Achilles heel.

What if the advertisements focused on something else?
What if our resolutions had more to do with our insides than our outsides?
What if our resolutions were something only God could see?

… there is no resolution to which we can come which is better advised than the resolution to depend upon God, and that to repose on His salvation, and on the assistance which He hath promised us, even although we may be surrounded with calamities, is the highest wisdom. (John Calvin)

No better resolution than the resolution to depend on God.

Reliance on His salvation and His promised assistance.
Reliance on Him even though the world crumbles around us.
That is the greatest wisdom.

That resolution cannot fail.
It cannot fail because God cannot fail.

The enemy would love nothing more than for us to rely on ourselves.
The enemy knows that we can’t possibly sustain anything in our own strength.
He waits in the wings to see us falter and fail.

The enemy is right there on our heels.
Pointing. Accusing. Condemning.
It’s February and we want the year to be over and a new year to begin.

Beaten before we even get out of the gate.
While the enemy gloats.

We forgot one vital part of the equation.
We forgot God.

God, if it is Your will…
God, if You allow…
God, I need Your help…

Follow the ellipsis with your resolution, but put God first.
Set goals for the New Year, but write them in pencil.

Out with the old, in with the new…creation, that is!

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation: the old has gone, the new has come!
(2 Corinthians 5:17)

That is the perfect verse for the New Year.

Resolve to love God more in the New Year.
Resolve to read your Bible more in the New Year.
Resolve to pray more in the New Year.
Resolve to share the Gospel more in the New Year.
Resolve to memorize Scripture in the New Year.
Resolve to depend on God for everything, starting with your resolutions.

…Apart from Me, you can do nothing. (John 15:5)

We are more like the fabled hare when it comes to our self-made resolutions.
We come out of the gate with our after burners on.
We run out of energy before the first turn.
God will bring about that which we resolve in His time and in His way.
We must be content with the tortoise pace.

After burners run out of fuel.
Leaning on ourselves is frustrating and tiring.
Tortoise-like submission is what we need.

No better resolution than the resolution to depend on God.

Oh God, I have my meager list.
Of things I want to do,
But I can’t possibly do them,
If I do them without YOU!

Oh God, I have these big ideas,
Of how the year should be,
But my plans are made of dust,
When I rely on me!

Oh God, what do You want my year to be?
How should I walk this road?
More like the tortoise, not the hare,
As my burdens I unload.

Oh God, I look ahead and find,
Many choices as I stand,
A solo trek would be unwise,
Abba, Father, take my hand.

Resolve to go into the New Year holding tightly to the Hand of God.