New Year’s Resolutions. A phrase you read and hear often this time of year. But the connotation this phrase relays to you depends on the kind of year 2019 has been for you. Do you look back with a sense of accomplishment and look forward with a sense of hope? Or does 2019 carry its share of pain and despair, casting a gloomy shadow upon 2020?
But what is it that we look for when we look back to “grade” 2019? Could it be that our grading scale is off scale? How do we define accomplishment? What would make us “feel good?” And is it about “feeling good?” I’m sure you’d agree with me that feelings often go as quickly as they come, leaving us empty, so what does a “good year” look like? For those of us who are Christians, we may define a good year as one that is in accordance to God’s will. But that brings us back to a similar question: What does a year in accordance to God’s will look like?
Every time I think of God’s will, I’m drawn back to the Apostle Paul’s admonition to the church in Rome in the 12th chapter of his letter. Paul, “carried along by the Holy Spirit” writes in Romans 12:2, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your minds, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” What Paul is saying here is that if we want to discern what the will of God is, we must: 1) not be conformed to the world, 2) be transformed by the renewal of our minds, and 3) test to discern what His good, acceptable, and perfect will is.
Which leads us to yet another question: What does conformity to this world look like? Let’s go back to our New Year’s resolution question: what would a year that “conforms to this world” look like? I would say it is one where I achieve all my goals, where no person or thing gets in the way of me fulfilling my dreams and goals, where I rise up my career ladder (with minimal effort), where I make a lot of money (also with minimal effort) and can afford to buy everything that will make me happy, and it would also be nice to have family and friends that like me.
What’s the common thread in all of those? I, my, me, my, I, my, I, me, me. It’s all about me and my script and I better not have anyone come in the way of me fulfilling my script. What happens when I want only my script at home? Well, I don’t think it will take long for my husband and kids to start backing away. What happens when I want only my script at work? I doubt I’ll make it for very long, or I’ll be scorned and hated. How about with friends? With neighbors? Just about anywhere? Disaster. “Sin has twisted our vision inward,” writes AW Tozer. One of the Greek words for sin is hamartia which essentially means “missing the mark.” We have missed the mark by trying to find meaning in and of ourselves, and it is not to be found there. In short, a year that “conforms to this world” is a world where me, myself, and I are the only inhabitants. A pretty lonely place!
“But I’m doing everything I can to fulfill my desires, and it doesn’t seem to be working,” you might explain. Well perhaps CS Lewis was right when he wrote: “If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.”
Our creator knew that nothing in this world can satisfy us, actually I believe He designed us that way! As St. Augustine put it, “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.” That is why He calls us, through the apostle Paul, to be transformed by the renewal of our minds. The Greek word for “transformed” is metamorphoo; a deep transformation of our minds to be able to see the world through the eyes of Christ; to have the “mind of Christ” as Paul writes to the Church in Corinth (1 Cor. 2:16). When we allow the Lord to so deeply transform our minds through our intimate union with Him and deep study of His word, our minute scripts fade in comparison to His glorious script. But He does not seek to obliterate our scripts and create robots who follow His script… absolutely not! It is when we echo our Master’s words to His Father, “not my will, but yours be done” will we discover our script and its place in His metanarrative or script for all of humanity. It is then that we can make sense of the apparent paradoxes of losing myself yet finding it and not being able to do anything apart from Christ yet doing all things through Christ. It is then that we will be able to test and discern what God’s will is; what a “good” year looks like.
My friends, I think the problem we face year after year with new year’s resolutions is that we “grade” our year based on how much of our script was fulfilled with no interruptions, hoping the new year will fulfill more of our scripts. May we reflect upon 2019 with a different, transformed set of eyes; eyes that Jesus said the man born blind man had and the Pharisees didn’t. May we pray to have eyes that see what He sees; a mind that thinks as He thinks, a heart that carries His burdens for humanity. May we with repentant hearts ask the Holy Spirit to point out all the ways we have sinfully pushed for our script, thinking that therein lies meaning and fulfillment, only to find that it was a “broken cistern that can hold no water” (Jer. 2:13).
May 2020 be the start of a return to the original role for which our Creator designed us; to be stewards with Him, to work with Him for the fulfillment of His glorious script for humanity in which He has graciously given you a part! Will you join me in exploring His script in 2020?
“Follow Me,” He says!
I can think of nothing more hopeful, more beautiful, more exhilarating, more magnificent, more glorious!
Happy New Year!