The Solution to Resolutions

The snowflakes began to fall at 4:08 Christmas Eve on the hill, exactly, as the gloaming of the night had begun. I knew the time because it was four hours after the exact time of my birth some years ago. And, I was celebrating a milestone birthday, one that made me feel a bit like a huge life change was coming, and I was resolving to change with it.

Like this new year of my life was heralding an all new and improved version. Of Me.

This year my resolutions are to continue to walk closely to clean eating. No sugar. No caffeine. No gluten (the most difficult one for me since gluten hides in just about everything). And, working out, I have to get back to that. On a schedule. Most importantly, I want the Bible to be where I spend the most time. I want God’s word to be my go-to before all else. Before social media, before cruising the web for articles to read, and especially before I have to give a hard answer. I want my family - most especially my son and grand-daughter - to see more of Jesus in me.

There I’ve said it. I have made resolutions. I can now be judged by anyone who reads this and sees me falling short. And, sister, let me tell you that I will fall short. Often.
I struggle with this double dose in December - of making resolutions, wanting to be different, to do better - for this is the time of year that always heralds a new year of my life and the New Year.

But.

Herein lies the problem of resolutions for me, I am critically hard on myself when I fail to keep a resolution. I feel so discouraged, even when I fail due to circumstances out of my control. I am disappointed in me. It becomes a slippery slope like the long hill down from my house, it starts out slow and then picks great momentum. I first feel I have failed me, and then I add to it facing those people I told I was making the resolution, and oftentimes if the resolution has to do with my spiritual walk, I feel I have failed God. Imaging that kind of failure can nearly take me out.

Is God disappointed in me? Of course not, He loves me with this crazy auspicious love that is reaching for me even before I fail, and that He loves me with unfailing love that leads me as  I am, one of His redeemed, and He guides me, as it says in Exodus 15:13.

Does he look at my lack of strength in keeping my resolutions shaking his head at another blundered attempt - I know He doesn’t but sometimes it feels, in my shame, that He does. What does God say about resolutions anyway? And all the changes I feel the need to make in myself which are largely and often so ME-centered.

The Bible certainly encourages us to examine our lives and resolve to change them if necessary, every day should be a cause for reflection, not just at the beginning of a new year. There should be that time we allow for examination by God and the standards He has set before us, as David writes in Psalm 26:2 Test me, O Lord, and try me, examine my heart and my mind. This should be a daily process. This and only this should be how we measure ourselves. 

But the real problem is within ourselves—within our own hearts and minds. Every one of us wants to be a good person, make resolutions and become a better person, but no matter how hard we try, we find ourselves tripped up by our own moral failures and weaknesses. Even the Apostle Paul experienced this in Romans 7:18 I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.      

Oh Sister, I know the struggle, and it is not the struggle of having that gluten-filled, calorie-laden, dark chocolate cake with ganache. It is the struggle of wanting to be the woman God created each one of us to be. 

And that is why we must chase after, hunger after, long for God’s solution rather than our resolutions.

What is the solution?

TURN TO GOD.

Reach up to him like my dear, sweet granddaughter who is so fresh from being with the Lord that she reaches up to me with complete and utter trust that I will care for her, cradle her and treasure her. Reach out to God like that, because unlike me - who will in my life fail that princess girl - He will never fail.

Ask Him to help you become the woman He created you to be. Plead with Him to show you who he wants you to be, not who in your own vision you are trying to be. And, my sister, He will never fail to answer when we cry out to him.

That is why I can say, and you too can and as Paul said in his letter to the Philippians, I can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens me. (4:13) And that is the solution to resolutions.