Putting your final plan together for 2019? Whether it’s drinking more water, using social media less or being kind to that one person you don’t feel like being kind to……have you ever thought about why you do new year resolutions in the first place?
This year I rashly banished my phone from my room in place of an old school radio alarm clock. This was my desperate effort to lessen my content binging time at night when I should be sleeping.
I’ve made many New Year’s resolutions in the past. It’s varied from feeding the fish more to stopping doing a bunch of things I shouldn’t be doing. They all had good intentions, but what I never did was ask myself why I was making those resolutions in the first place.
After some thought I decided what I really wanted was to see growth in myself and I still do. Deep down we all want to be better versions of ourselves and we can get pretty busy trying to improve ourselves. The process of setting goals, failing goals and grandly relaunching goals the following year gets quite exhausting.
Instead of becoming disillusioned, we need to be kind to ourselves and ask what is really going on. If it’s content binging and excessive social media scrolling that I need out of my life – what does that tell me? Probably that I need connection.
Jesus says, “Abide in me as I abide in you” or “stay connected to me”. There is also a caution later on in the passage “No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.” (John 15:4). One of my biggest temptations is trying to fix myself or others and make unrealistic goals in my own strength and as the passage says, it’s pretty much useless to do anything apart from Him.
This year, I want to get better at staying connected with Him so that I can live from His promises and what He says about me. Our resolutions can often come from what we perceive as our failures during the day to day. However as we connect with Him, truth becomes a lot weightier than our daily circumstances and His promises to us shine through.
In some seasons it can be very hard to point to any evidence of the outworking of his promises in our lives but scripture reminds us that we are to live in His promises even when we do not see their full reality. We are faced with a daily choice of what we choose as truth – either we can agree with what it says in the bible that we are “free indeed” or we can look upon our circumstances and agree with those instead.
Our circumstances and our failures will always be louder, which is why we must spend time reading scripture that is relevant to our dilemmas and memorising it so when those disillusioning moments come there is a platform of truth to stand on.
So this year I’m going to see 2019 through in style with my radio alarm clock but I’m glad that I know why I’m doing it and that I can stand on the promise that as I abide in Him He will abide in me.
Have you made a New Year’s Resolution? Follow these action steps below:
- Think about your New Year’s Resolution
- Ask yourself why you made it
- If it’s an area of growth that you want to see in your life, what does the bible say about it?
- Write down 3 scriptures to memorise and rehearse aloud when times get tough
If you’re seeking greater connection with God in 2019, a Discipleship Training School is a great opportunity to set aside six months to connect with God’s heart for you and the world around you.
Lucy Aylen
Lucy is one of our favourite Brits from a small English village in the Wiltshire countryside. She is on staff with YWAM Townsville and enjoys tea (of course), boxing, pizza and is passionate about empowering people to live their best life!
Recent Comments