I saw a cartoon in a newspaper the other day that pictured two dogs sitting side by side and the first dog asking the question: ‘what exactly is a New Year Resolution?’ The second dog answered: ‘It’s a to-do list for the first week of January!’ Lot’s of people make resolutions at the start of a new year – maybe, like me, you’ve made one too. But it doesn’t seem to take long to break those resolutions.
However, the other thing about New Year Resolutions is that they tend to be about the outward and physical. Eat less chocolate, drink less caffeine, watch less TV, do more exercise. I’m sure those things are good resolutions to make and keep, but rather than focusing on the outward and physical, wouldn’t it be good as Christians to think about the inward and spiritual? Jonathan Edwards, an 18th Century American preacher often made resolutions that dealt with the ‘inner man’. He would think about how he could be more patient, loving, gentle or self-controlled in the coming year. In other words, he resolved, not necessarily to be thinner – but to be holier! He once wrote of his New Year 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.’
So what’s your New Year Resolution? Mine is to love sin less, and love Jesus more. I hope to keep that up well beyond the first week of January!