Is it just me, or are New Year’s Resolutions tiring, draining? Do this, don’t do that, eat more of this, less of that. Run a mile a day, sleep 12 hours and do a few juice cleanses in the meantime.
It wears me out and frankly leaves me with this weird anxiety, looking back at the past year and looking towards the next. But I totally messed that one thing up last year, I’m such a failure, what if I can’t be any better this year? It wears me out. I don’t want to have anxiety starting right at the beginning of the new year. There's a better way.
Maybe it’s just the fact that there’s a time constraint on New Year’s Resolutions. I can start a healthy habit or goal whenever I like with little problem, but tell me to start it on January 1st? Heck, I’ll freak out!
I honestly don’t think anyone should feel anxiety going into a new year. Forming all these new rules, for myself, doesn’t make me flourish, personally.
Maybe it does for you or maybe it doesn’t, but I think we should all question ourselves if making New Year’s Resolutions is helping ourselves or setting us up for unnecessary worry. What I love about Christianity is that it isn’t about all these rules because Jesus came to take away the Old Law. There is freedom in Christ! It’s a relationship in which we can flourish.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t have goals in mind—we definitely should!—but I think we need to shift our perspective, or at least I know I do!
That’s why this year, I don’t have resolutions like, eat a kale salad for breakfast, learn Tamil, Portuguese, and Esperanto by July, travel to 5 countries, save 1K per week (okay, maybe I’m being a bit facetious now, haha). I thought about it, and the only resolution I want to make and keep is to listen to God more and more for guidance and insight.
The Only Resolution I Want to Make and Keep is to listen to God more and more.
I think we all have good intentions, but I think we should bring our heart to God to be filled with his will before embarking on what we think is best.
One of the big things I want to work on this year is surrendering my will to God before making a big decision in the way I think it should go. I must be in constant communication with God. Every day I must wake up, start fresh, listen to God, put on love.
Every day I must...start fresh, listen to God, put on love.
We are to present ourselves a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1) and we have been created in Christ to do good works (Ephesians 2:10). Do I like to ask myself, What good works has God entrusted me to do this year?
What good works has God entrusted me to do this year?
I, of course, have my own small goals that I want to keep in mind and work at this year, like writing more, doing a Bible study at my school, working out more, but my biggest goal that I focus on is walking in what God has set before me and be willing to give up my own will to follow in what God tells me.
Don’t let your past deter you from a flourishing future. Don’t become overcome with anxiety with memories of failures from last year scare you from letting God create a beautiful and glorifying future for you.
God is the God of our yesterdays. God’s grace can turn our past anxieties into a ministry, into a story that can help others and bring us more peace and into a deeper relationship with Him.
Let’s look to the Maker of heaven and earth for guidance for our future.
