If you’re considering making some New Year’s resolutions this yr, consider this: like other exercises of raw willpower, most New Year’s resolutions fail miserably.
According to research, 80 percent of those that make resolutions on January 1 have given up by Valentine’s Day. Nutrition experts say that two-thirds of dieters regain any weight lost inside a yr, and greater than 70 percent of people that undergo coronary bypass surgery fall back into unhealthy habits inside two years of their surgery.
“Most of us think that we will change our lives if we just summon the willpower and take a look at even harder this time around,” says Alan Deutschman, the previous executive director of Unboundary, a firm that counsels corporations on find out how to navigate change. “It’s exceptionally hard to make life changes, and our efforts are often doomed to failure after we attempt to do it on our own.”
As we take into consideration New Year’s resolutions, it’s vital to comprehend something about human nature: people do what they wish to do. The Reformation theologian Thomas Cranmer held this view of human nature (as summarized by Anglican historian Ashley Null):
“What the guts loves, the need chooses, and the mind justifies. The mind doesn’t direct the need. The mind is definitely captive to what the need wants, and the need itself, in turn, is captive to what the guts wants.”
So making a resolution and summoning up all of your willpower does little good if, ultimately, your heart isn’t in it. Does this mean you need to abandon any hope of change? Not in any respect. If you’re going to make a New Year’s resolution, listed below are just a few things to consider.
1. Is It A Good Resolution?
Try to find out if the resolution is definitely good. Are you planning on figuring out more? If so, is it because you wish to be steward of the body God gave you or is it vanity? In reality, it might be a few of each. But what’s the driving desire? Is it one?
2. Just Do It
If your resolution is definitely one, just do it. Go ahead and work out more, smoke or drink less, read your Bible more, pay down your debt and save more for retirement, give attention to your marriage, spend more time together with your children. Every now and again, people start a New Year’s resolution and it sticks. But most don’t. That’s because (1) you’re sinner and (2) your heart is an idol factory.
3. Grace Actually Works
The reality is that your resolution is probably going needed because, like everyone else apart from Jesus, you should not loving God together with your entire being and never loving your neighbor as yourself. These two failures result in havoc, discord, pain, and destruction. Jesus gave us the essential requirement: “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your mind.’ This is the nice and first commandment. And a second is prefer it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments depend all of the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 22:40).
That basic failure is why we want the gospel: Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection cope with the guilt and the stain of sin. It’s also why we so often fail at our attempts to enhance ourselves.
But Jesus also gave us the Holy Spirit, who can change our desires and empower us to like God and neighbor. As Paul tells us, “it’s God who works in you, each to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). With us and our willpower, Jesus says, change is unattainable, “but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26).
God Gives Grace to Change
As Cranmer realized, our wills are captive to what our hearts love, and we’re powerless to alter ourselves without the work of God’s Spirit changing our desires. When you think that through New Year’s resolutions, here’s a prayer from the Book of Common Prayer as you ask God to work in your heart:
Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to like what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the many swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Justin Holcomb is an Episcopal priest and teaches theology at Reformed Theological Seminary and Knox Theological Seminary. Justin wrote On the Grace of God and co-authored along with his wife Lindsey Rid of My Disgrace and Save Me from Violence. He can be the editor of Christian Theologies of Scripture. You can find him on Facebook, Twitter, and at JustinHolcomb.com.
Photo Credit: Getty Images/Cn0ra
