How do you feel about New Year's Resolutions?
Do you ever roll your eyes or feel a pang of regret at all the resolutions made last year but not seen through?
I guess our varied feelings about the concept of making New Years Resolutions is rooted in the reality that they are often completely forgotten by the time we come round to making them again next year.
But why? How is it that our best-made plans are so often laid bare?
Is it because we’re ill- disciplined, incompetent slackers?
I don’t think so. Resolutions usually fade away over time, even for the most determined among us.
So why does this happen?
The problem is rooted in this: We have mistakenly come to think that the fact that we have goals, and the desire to do something about them, will be enough for us to reach them.
But it won’t. Almost never.
That's because we don’t rise to the level of our aspirations; we fall to the level of our habits.
Having aspirations and a desire to do something with them will only ever be good enough to bring about short term change.
Sustained change, on the other hand, does not come until we establish a new habit; a repeated pattern or regular discipline that, over time, enables us to reach our goal.
For example, saying, “my New Year's resolution is to read more this year,” is destined for failure.
Developing the habit of reading for 20 minutes a day at a consistent time and place will ensure you become a person who reads more.
Similarly, “I want to be fitter” is an intangible aspiration.
You might go to the gym for the first three weeks in January, and wonder why you’re still paying your gym subscription in March.
However, if you choose to develop a new habit… “I will join that exercise class from 7:00-7:30am on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday every week.”
you’ll build in a new habit and, in consequence, reach your fitness goal.
So what if you long to know Jesus more intimately in 2022?
That’s great… you and me both. But a vague goal to “know Jesus better” is going to get us nowhere.
There’s only one way that any relationship grows, and that’s through time together.
So what are we going to do?
We're going to develop a new habit.
“I will spend 20 mins with God every morning, using the Lectio app.”
Or
“I will join my Lightwave group meeting every week to study the Bible, pray and share life”
Now they are specific habits that will ultimately enable us to reach your goal of deeper intimacy with Jesus.
You get the idea... the objective is to translate your aspirations into habits; to move your ambitions from something broad and intangible to something achievable and measurable. The Christian tradition calls these habits “spiritual disciplines”. They are anything we make a habit of, which puts us in the right place to let God work in our hearts. It is still God’s grace - his work in our lives… but our habit gives him the space and opportunity to be involved. The Saint, Frances de Sales said “Fruit ripens in the presence of the sun. So let us dwell in the presence of God and one day, we shall bear fruit”
So yes, let’s use the opportunity the New Year brings to reflect on what’s been, and set some goals to grow in our relationship with God in the year to come. Let’s not settle for goals alone which will inevitably fade away. Instead, let’s build in a new, regular habit to place ourselves each day, each week in a place where we are open to Gods work in our lives and our aspirations will not become regrets.
To do that, let me encourage you to take some time to prayerfully consider these two questions…
What is the change you would like to make, or the goal you would like to reach?
What is a realistic and specific habit you can develop to enable you to reach that goal?
The truth is, we do not become the people we aspire to become simply because we aspire to become them.
It’s the regular habits which open us to Gods work in our lives that lead us step by little step to the bigger changes we desire.
Lightwave has some resources to help you build some God-habits into your life -
for example the ABC of Lightwave, the “Run with Joy” course on Benedictine prayer practices or the “Labours of Love” course for Lent.
-Archdeacon Sally Gaze