Y From the Heart The Anatomy of a Resolution
Such a fuss is made over New Year’s resolutions. Strangers on the street ask, “So, have you made your New Year’s resolution yet?” Our friends tell us theirs. I’m going to get up at 5:00 AM for my quiet time every morning. I’m going to lose those last ten pounds. I’m going to get organized. I’m going to volunteer at the local women’s shelter. I’m going remember to do P.E. with the kids’ more often. (Or music or arts & crafts…)
So, what exactly is a resolution? Webster’s 1928 Dictionary shows that a “resolution” is a “fixed purpose or determination of mind; as a resolution to reform our lives.” Do people actually choose a New Year’s resolution and see it through? How fixed is their goal? How determined are they? Do they actually reform? How many times have we heard, “Oh, well, resolutions are made to be broken, right?”
To be honest, it’s been quite a few years since I’ve made a New Year’s Resolution. And I’m not sure I’m going to make any this year. But if I did, I would pass on the noun, “resolution” and move right along to the verb, “resolve.” Webster says the verb “resolve” means “to fix in opinion or purpose; to determine in the mind. He resolved to abandon his vicious course of life.”
After thinking about the deleterious method of making resolutions that are doomed to fail and feeling the guilt of not keeping them, I think that I will resolve to take action on those things to which the Holy Spirit beckons me.
We can’t possibly work on everything at once. We can only work on little bits of information at a time. For example, I’ve been joining Jeff and Tiffani out on the golf course this month (December). Something occurred to me for the first time today. My torso rotates during the process of my swing. Sounds simple enough, but I’ve been attempting to golf for a couple years now and only today did my torso come into my mind. Up until today, I’d been focused on my grip, then keeping my left arm straight, then my stance, and keeping my head down; working on one or two of these at a time. Jeff said that’s the problem with some coaches. They give their pupils 4 things to work on and the brain can’t possibly work on all four aspects at the same time.
Sometimes we think we want all the steps right now. OK, Lord, I know that you’re calling me. I even think I understand the end-point. Do you think you can just show me all the steps right now? Even if I don’t need step #4 until six months from now? I’m convinced that if the Lord revealed step #4 too early, that we’d never focus on the previous steps or we’d be completely overwhelmed with the task at hand. Thanks to God’s kindly disposition, things that we cannot possibly understand do not occur to us at all. I don’t know who said that, but that sign hung on my bedroom wall all through high school and university. I read that sign nearly every day, but I don’t think I truly understood it until now.
We are all works in progress. "All I ever have to be is what You made in me." This is one of my favorite lines from an old Amy Grant album. How are we to be what He’s made in us? By deciding on our own, what is best for us? No.
We need to check in with Him. Only through prayer and meditation on the Word, will we know what we are to be, through Him. The latest Christian best seller cannot tell us. Our spouse cannot tell us. Our local church body cannot tell us. Our friends cannot tell us. We must ask Him and then we must listen.
Many of us have had burdens of ministry placed on our hearts this past year. Jeff and I have had a burden placed on our hearts to pray for and help marriages and families for the last couple years. Our “burden” repeatedly comes to our mind and heart and it is on this, which our prayers dwell. I’m so excited to see what the Lord has done and will continue to do with the DCHEA families. It’s not always easy to home educate and focus on the Lord’s personal call on your life. Home education is a calling in and of itself.
I’m realizing even as I’m writing this that the best New Year’s resolution, no matter how cliché it might sound is to spend more time praying and reading the Bible. The clincher, however, is do these things with determination to see our lives continually reformed as we become what He’s made us to be.
Psalm 51:10 says, “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.”
As we enter the New Year, I pray that we would meditate on this Scripture. That we’d all pray to be renewed in heart and mind. That our hope and joy would be restored or strengthened. And that we’d have a willing spirit to sustain us as we venture forth. Take your worries, problems and confessions to the Lord. Ask for His guidance and forgiveness. Ask forgiveness from whom your heart encourages, as well. Your spouse? A friend? A parent? Start this year with a clean slate.
Always remember…we are allowed to start over. Romans 12:2 tells us, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be ale to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
Isn’t it exciting that as our mind is renewed we will be better equipped to understand what God’s will is?! God’s will – good, pleasing and perfect – it can’t get any better than that! J
I’m praying that you’ll be showered with God’s blessings as you resolve to discover His will is for you.
Lovingly, Traci J