New Year’s Day Thought on Resolutions
What truly matters to you? What do you want to become? What do you want to achieve this year? What will you spend your time on this year? I am writing this on New Year’s Day morning 2021, so I would like to reflect on resolutions.
There is a certain excitement that comes with the New Year, a peculiar hope that this year might be “the year”, the one we have all been waiting for, the year our dreams come true. And after a tragedy like 2020, it’s easy to hope that 2021 will be a better year. Well, I’m no prophet so I’ll leave the predictions of the forecast to the experts who know what they’re talking about. My aim in this thought is not to make predictions for 2021, but to consider our resolutions for the year ahead.
Resolutions are an important part of everyday life, or at least they should be; they were present in ancient wisdom literature (Proverbs 16:9), and they are readily used today. There is a plethora of academic literature on the usefulness of setting goals that are specific and achievable [1]. But I don’t want to focus on how to form a resolution, rather I would like to focus on the heart behind the resolution.
When the new year comes it often forces people to consider their priorities - what they want to achieve this year. And very often those priorities are to do with physical achievements like losing weight, or improving diet, or are money and career oriented. Or possibly the resolution is educational, like to learn or improve a new skill, or maybe to learn a new language; there are many goals we might set. But I believe that New Year Resolutions are likely to be our hearts priorities written on a page, or at least what we think our priorities should be. And what are priorities are matters a lot according to the Bible (Exodus 20:3, Matthew 22:37).
I propose that you should ask yourself a couple of questions before you write down your resolution;
“Why is this a priority?” This involves analysing your heart behind the resolution.
“How can doing this glorify God?” For this should be our ultimate priority in life.
If having this resolution as a priority in 2021 seems pointless, then you’re probably not going to achieve it. If your hearts intention behind this resolution is wrong, then you might want to consider that resolution a little longer, probing a little deeper before you write it down.
The second question is very important to consider. This should be a question which drives all of our decisions and thoughts. If the answer is that it can’t glorify God, then simply don’t do it. If the answer is that it might prohibit you from glorifying God, possibly by becoming an idol, then be very careful with this resolution, and make plans to prevent this from becoming an idol in your life. If this resolution has the potential of leading you into sin, again consider it deeply and make plans to prevent this from happening. If the answer is ‘yes it glorifies God’, then great, you will do well to stick to the resolution throughout the year.
To finish, I would like to focus on somebody who was incredibly resolved. He lived in the 18th century, he was a remarkable man of God, in fact he has been called the greatest pastor America has ever produced, arguably the greatest preacher America has produced in the last 3 centuries, preaching the best sermon [2], the greatest theologian and the greatest philosopher [3]. This man is called Jonathan Edwards. At the age of 18 and 19 he was entering into the ministry, and about to pastor a church in New York, so he wrote out 70 resolutions dealing with all sorts of matters [4]. I have actually put a poster of these resolutions on the wall above my desk as many of them are profound and helpful, although I’m not sure I should be sharing this publicly as I’ve been teased enough by my family. But Edwards’ resolutions are soaked in Scripture, God centred and very practical for everyday living. I want to simply touch on his preamble to the resolutions.
“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.”
Before we make any resolutions, we must realise, that we depend upon God for all our strength, and if we don’t, our ambitions will be meaningless and futile. So, we must humbly ask God for help and guidance as we keep our resolutions, and indeed his grace is sufficient for our every need (2 Corinthians 12:9). It’s okay if our plans are thwarted, as I look back on 2020, I couldn’t do a lot of what I planned, but that’s okay because God’s will is always for good in the end. Finally, as with everything we want and do, we must make and keep our resolutions for Christ’s sake, as we live to serve him our Lord.
May God bless you in the New Year as you make, and hopefully keep your resolutions!
James.
[1] Locke, E.A. and Latham, G.P., 2006. New directions in goal-setting theory. Current directions in psychological science, 15(5), pp.265-268.
[2] Sinners in the hands of an angry God, Jonathan Edwards; https://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/sdg/pdf/edwards_angry.pdf
[3] Jonathan Edwards: The Use of Your Time - Steve Lawson; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtMuaAOecV4
[4] The Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards; https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-resolutions-of-jonathan-edwards
