Where Resolutions Go To Die

Two years ago, I made no resolutions.  I had no intention of adding to an already endless catalog of what I needed to do in the next twelve months. But instead I sought to focus on being, how to go forth, not encumbered by a well-meaning, check-it-off to-do list, but how I wanted to be.  Not making it to the third week of January where resolutions go to die, but being changed in increments all the way through the year.

What is God forming in me through this?

Instead of resolutions, I wrote down ten directives to focus my eyes and my heart.  I attached a scripture verse to each one just to keep me in the right lane and bring the name of Jesus in how to live, breathe, and have my being. Acts 17. 28   Degree by degree, it began changing how I responded, my thoughts, prayers, pursuits, and my entire year – and then spilled over into the next.  And made me a little bit different than the year before, and sometimes even the day before. I have a long way to go. 

In all of us, gradually and surprisingly, God weaves His transformation into the very fabric of our being and radically alters those things we do.  We are able to approach, respond and navigate the swamps and boulder fields differently because we have focused on Him.  Being precedes the doing, not the other way around.

Doing something may emerge out of all of this.  But there is a distinct difference by focusing on who we are becoming and how we are growing.  May we be at the end of this year – or even the mere closing of this day -- more like Jesus.  And that exceeds everything else.

Because transformation doesn’t just land on our doorstep like a two-hour Amazon order, even a singular act of obedience leads us ever deeper into the slow work of God on our souls.

He opened a door previously unimaginable, wrote Jean Fleming in her book Pursue The Intentional Life.  Following God will do that to us, seeing portals and paths and opportunities we have never realized before. And meeting Him there.

These on-going reminders are taped to a cabinet in my closet – in plain view.  Because I’m still working on them.  And God is still working on me.  He’s not done with me yet. 

 

·       Pay attention.  …to have the mind of Christ.  1 Corinthians 2. 16

·       Write something, read something, run something every day.  Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might.  Ecclesiastes 9. 10

·       Weave kindness in my words.  …that I may show the kindness of God to him. 2 Samuel 9.3

·       Don’t interrupt.  …slow to speak. James 1. 19

·       Do small things well.  Do not despise the day of small things. Zechariah 4. 10

·       Listen.  Really listen to others and to God.  ….listen to Me.  Blessed are those who keep My ways.  Proverbs 8. 32

·       Be present.  Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.  1 Thessalonians 5. 11

·       Reinvent.  Reinvest.  Recreate.  Redeem.  Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due when it is in your power to do it.  Proverbs 3. 27

·       Ask questions.  Lots of questions. …Jesus spoke to him first, saying, “What do you think?”  Matthew 17. 25

·       Be gentle.  Let your gentleness be evident to all.  Philippians 4. 5  A soft answer turns away wrath.  Proverbs 15. 1

 

My list will not resemble yours.

But our dissimilar intentions are rooted in the same Love that draws, a Voice that calls, as T. S. Eliot penned in his poem Four Quartets.

It is not about being a “better person” by the end of the year, but being a radically different one, living out what we really believe and welcoming the Holy Spirit to rearrange the furniture and build something new in us.

Throughout time, people have wondered and even been obsessed by, “What should I do?”

What if we instead asked who do I want to be?  Not recognized by what we do, but known by Him and known as His, seeking to live a faithful life, every sacred step on this holy ground of our lives.