Failed New Year’s Resolutions
I should have learned by now. New Year’s Resolutions don’t work for me. But they’re such a good idea. The process makes sense to me.
- Review the past year
- Think about what I want to do better
- Set goals
- Turn them into a resolutions
Every year I go through this process, hopeful it will be successful for the upcoming twelve months. Over the years I’ve tried different approaches to improve the process. I…
- vowed to try harder
- made easier resolutions
- asked God to help me set realistic goals
- prayed for strength to keep my resolutions
All to no avail. Year after year I fail. This year I finally faced facts: I needed a different approach to resolutions.
A Different Model
About the time I was pondering what to do, a friend shared a quotation from J. Hudson Taylor (1832-1905) with me. An early missionary to China, Taylor described his journey of spiritual growth: “I used to ask God to help me. Then I asked if I might help Him. I ended up by asking Him to do His work through me.”
As I thought about this quotation, I considered how it might apply to my problem with resolutions. What if instead of asking God to help me with my goals, I asked God to work God’s goals through me? That’s when Paul’s reassurance to the Christians at Philippi (Phil 1:6) came to mind. “I’m sure God, who began this good work in you, will carry it on until it is finished…”
Instead of asking God to help me with my resolutions, I needed to ask God to work through me. But what exactly did that mean? As I read further in Philippians, Paul’s definition of “this good work” became clear. “I pray that your love will keep on growing more and more, together with true knowledge and perfect judgment, so that you will be able to choose what is best.” (Phil 1:9-10)
A Prayer for 2017
This year I’m replacing my list of New Year’s Resolutions with a prayer:
Father, in 2017 increase my love, my knowledge and my judgment. Help me choose what is best so You can do your work through me. Amen
A passionate reader, I began writing as a young girl. After graduating from college, I became a teacher. Over the course of my career, I taught high schoolers, college undergraduates, and public school teachers how to write personal narratives, expository and persuasive essays, as well as poetry and short fiction. I continued to write: publishing professional articles, two textbooks, short stories, and poetry. In 2013, I won first place in Romantic Suspense in the ACFW Genesis Contest.
This is new insight for this verse. In a sense, it takes control from “control freaks” and allows “choosing” to become a passive experience. Thank you, Suzanne
You’re right! It also shifts the choice of focus from “I” to God. This has been a very freeing understanding of my responsibility to God.