“Fresh Starts” are a gift straight from Heaven. The advent of a new year feels like a welcome “clean slate”, a springboard for cleaner eating, more consistent disciplines, or even reining in some areas of excess, whether it be entertainment, spending, or sugar indulgence. There’s a reason why you see myriads of new faces at the gym, seemingly overnight. New Year’s Resolutions are a kind echo of God’s perpetual invitation to choose wisdom in our daily living.
Jonathan Edwards, a pastor, writer, and deep lover of God who lived in the 1700’s, applied the discipline of resolution making to his spiritual life. Three, five, or even ten intentional objectives would have been thorough; Jonathan penned seventy - at the age of eighteen years old. You can explore his entire collection if you’d like, but here are a few selections:
“Resolved, to examine carefully, and constantly, what that one thing in me is, which causes me in the least to doubt of the love of God; and to direct all my forces against it.” (Resolution 25)
“Resolved, to be strictly and firmly faithful to my trust, that that in Proverbs 20:6, “A faithful man who can find?” may not be partly fulfilled in me.” (Resolution 32)
“Resolved, after afflictions, to inquire, what I am the better for them, what good I have got by them, and what I might have got by them.” (Resolution 67)
“Resolved, to inquire every night, before I go to bed, whether I have acted in the best way I possibly could, with respect to eating and drinking.” (Resolution 40)
“Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life.” (Resolution 7)
Carrying out even one of these aims would radically transform one’s life. At best, our new year’s resolutions will do just that - aid in the life-long journey of being transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2) so that we become conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, one degree at a time (2 Corinthians 3:18).
And at worst? Can there be a shadow-side to well-intentioned goal setting? Our enemy will certainly try to insert himself. He knows that human pride can poison our resolutions with a book-end approach. At the outset, pride will seduce us to attack our resolutions in our own strength, independent of the Lord’s enabling grace. And after we have fallen short in one area or another, pride will paralyze us with the accusing sting of defeat, convincing us it’s no use to continue the endeavor. Both of the enemy’s methods to use our resolutions against us remove God from the equation. At some point, most of us have probably experienced one or both of these outcomes…likely before February rolls around.
How, then, can we make resolutions resistant to the influence of pride? How can we stand in a posture of humility mingled with lion-hearted courage? How can we foster a hopeful and earnest spirit of dedication instead of a resolve laced with cynicism?
…BY Remembering the Lord.
Often in Scripture, when God’s people stand at the precipice of a challenging (or downright seemingly impossible) situation, He invites them to hit rewind. He reminds them of all the scenarios where He’s shown up on their behalf in the past - the scenarios where they didn’t stand a chance without His gracious intervention. Just as a bellows delivers invigorating oxygen to a struggling fire, God breathes a strong blast of courage into the hearts of His struggling people, not by reminding them of their own capability, but by reassuring them of His own.
In Deuteronomy, we find Moses pleading with the people under his care to do this humble work of remembering. The Israelites were getting ready to walk out of their wilderness and into the new challenges of receiving the land God had promised to them. Moses, with a tear-jerking appeal, framed their future and past with this perspective:
Deuteronomy 1:30-31
“The Lord your God who goes before you will Himself fight for you, just as He did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness, where you have seen how the Lord your God carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way that you went until you came to this place.”
Images of strong protective arms, a compassionate heart, enduring strength, and sovereign foresight that could only describe a Father, reminded the Israelite people that they had been carried for the last 40 years. They couldn’t afford to forget that God was the source of their deliverance and flourishing.
We can’t afford to forget it either. We can’t afford to forget that we aren’t responsible for our own successes. We aren’t even sufficient for our own faithfulness. Even the simplest resolution we carry out is enabled by the grace of a generous Father.
The Work Of Remembering
protects our resolving
from becoming self-relying.
As we set our hearts to new resolutions, may we be a people who also, and often, set our hearts to remembering. Practically, this could look like marrying each of our resolutions to an evidence of God’s faithfulness or His character.
“This year, I’m going to workout twice a week,”
could become,
“God has given me a physical frame and sent His Spirit to live within me. Because His Spirit enables me to bear the fruit of self-control, I will depend on His grace to help me care for this bodily temple by exercising twice a week.”
or,
“This year, I want to stop giving in to anxiety,”
could become,
“God has always provided for my needs in the past. His presence with me is the foundation for my peace. This year, I resolve to take each anxious moment I encounter to Him, letting Him speak truth to me and fill me with His peace.”
If you’re a list-maker, you could simply pair each of your resolutions with a verse about a facet of God’s character or one of His promises that will remind you of His enabling grace for that goal.
At the very beginning of Jonathan Edwards’ list of resolutions, before he recorded even one objective, we find a really important prerequisite that defines each of the 70 to come:
“Being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God’s help, I do humbly entreat Him by His grace to enable me to keep these resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to His will for Christ’s sake.”
As we step into renewed resolve for God’s glory and our good, let us steep all of our resolutions and goals in the rich truth that apart from Christ, we can do nothing (John 15:5), but with Him, we can do all the things He leads us to (Philippians 4:13). Let us never do the work of resolving apart from abiding.