Dear Child of God,

I applaud you for setting goals for the New Year. Look at you go, you world changer, you. Maybe this year you’re going to find ways to live a healthier lifestyle. Maybe you’re going to travel more. Maybe it is something else…but hey! You are choosing positives for yourself this year, and for that, I am excited for your plans.

This is not to discount your intentions or downplay your abilities. What I do want to extend to you, though, is a reminder of grace. Please, sweet child of God, do not turn your resolutions into strivings. The most important thing in this life to give into is grace, and grace is something you do not have to work for; grace is something you do not have to earn.

Amidst your other, admirable, resolutions, I challenge you this: resolve to ignore the pressure to “do” and give into the freedom of grace.

There are God-glorifying ways to pursue our resolutions. For example, our bodies are temples, so He delights in us keeping them healthy. What I am saying is that I don’t believe that all resolutions are so bad.

What I want you, child of God, to know, is the following. If you do not achieve your dreams this year, if you do not get to write checks down your 2016 “to do” list, and if you do not consider yourself “successful” by the end of the year, you have not lost. It is not over.

“The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever." Isaiah 40:8

You, child of God, are identified as this above all: His. All else will fade away. Your desires and your strivings are merely chasing the wind, but take heart that this means only the best remains.

Don’t let the pursuit of resolutions interrupt your pursuit of The Lord. Do not let your obsession with finishing what you’ve started, distract you from His cry, “it is finished”, that declared your striving for Heaven was over.

Philippians 4:13, friend.

So, child of God, congratulations on your first week of 2016. I pray that your dreams come true as God’s timing allows. I pray that your resolutions are fulfilled for His glory.

I hope you have a wonderful year, rejoicing in both joys and afflictions.

You are loved, and there is grace.

Hold on tight to it.

Love,

Child of God.