There is an undeniably regular reason why not much farther beyond six days into the new year your infant-aged resolution is already in trouble. In fact, if you haven’t already abandoned all resolve to welcome in the new, better you, you’ve at least hit the snooze button once. Each year, scores of folks partake in the ritual of making commitments they will not keep. Maybe it’s the overindulgence of the holidays or the mistakes of a year passed that drive people to muster the resolve to be different.
Statistically, most people resolve to lose weight or to save more money. Statistics also show that these same people will probably make the same resolution once again this time next year.
If I separated my made resolutions into two piles, the followed through pile would be quite a bit less substantial than the pile of resolutions transformed into results. Had I held to my resolutions of old, I would have run a marathon, journaled enough for at least six books, learned two languages and probably would be a much nicer person. But I’m not. While enraptured in romantic notions of me becoming that much better in doing these things, I haven’t accomplished any of them. I gave up too soon and ended pursuit for something far less glamorous and interesting, typically television. If television were a reputable resolution, my effort would certainly be talked about. As I writer, I’d love to say books rather than television, but that’s the better me that I don’t usually live to be.
We all stand staring at the beginning of a new year wanting to be different, hoping for drive to marry desire and live forever in our metamorphosed lives. And those years and wants just pile up higher.
There’s a reason this doesn’t work out for you. If you are anything like me, and I’m willing to bet you are, at least a little, the busyness of your life is all about you and being some better, more accepted, heralded, acclaimed and noticed version of who you’ve been.
Better is, well, better. People love being better.
We are addicted to the idea of who we think we could be or should be, or must be in order to be okay and appeased, but it will never end. We feast on the idea of some better version of who we should be while we starve ourselves in the empty wanting.
Here’s a help: you’ll never be who you’re not, now.
But it’s quite a bit deeper and more disturbed than adopting a self-actualized mantra. Calling out in resolutions made to achieve and discover a better you is a calling out for home and to belong. I want to be better in hopes that I might be more at ease with my restless self and feel accepted and loved. That is the root and reason for most resolutions in my life.
There is but one fix for this void - Jesus.
For a lifetime we can experiment with happiness and search for the kind that sticks to our bone, but Jesus alone can satisfy. Just as he assured a soul thirsty woman looking for life in sheets that he could provide quench for her thirst, so can he for us. All we must ever do is to stop our pursuit of lesser things we think will guide us to a better version of ourselves.
Make a resolution. Resolve that the answer will never, ever be discovered within your flesh and blood and bone.
In these six days into a new year, cease the empty busyness of achieving a better version of yourself. Instead, be found in him, drink deeply of his grace and go satisfied.