It’s that time of year again. A time for resolutions and the focus on self- improvement. At the start of the new year it seems like everyone is trying to make up their New Year’s resolutions and the promise to themselves that somehow this year will be different than the last year. We promise ourselves that we will exercise more, budget our money better, learn a new skill, take that trip, and improve- whatever that might look like to us.
We start the year off strong, keeping those new promises, going to the gym, saving our money instead of wildly spending it, signing up for classes and beginning planing our trips by doing research online. But, slowly as January marches into February and February turns into March, our resolves to keep these promises tanks.
So, maybe this year we need to approach this differently. Not try to improve ourselves, not try so hard to change who we are, but give ourselves some grace. Change can be good, don’t get me wrong. And trying to be a better person; kinder, more generous, more patient is a good goal. The problem is this will not happen overnight or in a few months or weeks. Maybe the change isn’t manifested by trying to do or act in a new way, but returning to what we used to do, before life seemed to get out of control. I mean if we are honest, that’s usually why we want to change, or make these resolutions at the start of the new year, because we see our lives and ourselves as out of control, our control. And to be truthful, everything is beyond our control. There is very little that we can control in this life. And that feeling of being not in control is frightening. And our resolutions become a way to gain back what control we believe we should have.
Honestly, we are in control of what we eat and how we choose to exercise or not exercise, that is in our control, but those stressors that bring about our bad habits of eating and laziness(the not exercising part) are not. It’s just how we respond to the stressors that is in our control.
I was reminded this week as I began searching for a bucket list trip for this new year, the importance of not doing something new, making unrealistic changes, but just how much I needed a reset. To get back to the basics, before life got so stressful and I began to believe it was all out of control and I needed to get it into control.
As I began my trip search I noticed that every time I selected a hotel from the list of possibilities and than went back to the search list, the filters I had selected to narrow the list down a bit, was removed, so I had to keep reseting them. This has been a bit annoying to be sure. It has made the process unnecessarily long. But it has prompted me to look back and realize perhaps instead of so much self- improvement goals I needed a reset myself. I have my own filters of what I will do and won’t do in my list of improvement goals, I decided that yes, I want to shed a few post- holiday pounds, yes I want to budget better, and yes and want to fulfill all the promises made in the previous year, but I will filter out from the list other items. The difficult ones, the ones that focus on others, I just want to focus on me this year. I didn’t want a reset on God’s terms, just my own, with applying my own filters.
That is until I was rereading the Gospel of Luke this morning, not the whole thing, just a small passage, when I realized that in my goals and resolutions I had been overlooking the basics. I had been focusing on my self and not on others. In doing so, I was setting up this year to be a self- centered one. Not a giving of myself to others, not forgiving and walking the extra mile, not giving without expecting anything in return, not the loving and praying for my enemies. The basics of what Jesus’ taught. The selfless view of treating others, that replaced the self-fish view of life, the view that tries to be the best person by focusing on self. I felt convicted yet hopeful as I read the passage.
The New year isn’t about doing something new in order to make life better, it was the need to return to what God had designed for me, for us, the kind of life and behavior that God intended. To love God and love others. We were designed for a relationship with our creator and each other. It’s the factory setting. Now it’s time to reset my factory setting. God Bless- Nancy
Moving Forward 