Do you keep making this resolution-making mistake?

There's a lesson I keep re-learning year-to-year. It goes like this:

1. December 30^th: Get inspired.

2. December 31^st: Take initiative to set goals (yes, plural) for all the areas of my life.

3. January 1^st: Pure motivation and willpower carry me through the first step of each goal.

4. Somewhere between January 2nd and 31st: Pat myself on the back, and decide to try again next year.

The lesson? Resolutions don’t run very far on willpower.

Next time you make a resolution, try starting in a different spot

Please hear me: inspiration and initiative are great things.

They just tend to pass the baton along to a fuel that burns up quickly: human willpower. I know, I know, there are studies about human willpower being like a muscle and you can strengthen it. I agree. But there’s a better fuel that comes from a different starting place.

To find it, we need only turn to 1 John 4:19: “We love because he first loved us.” 

Did you catch what John said?

• “We love” – Ultimately a New Year’s resolution is an act of love toward a recipient, whether it’s ourselves, other people, or God.

• “because” – because implies that whatever comes before that word – in this case our love – is caused by whatever comes after that word.

• “he first loved us” – If anybody’s taking initiative here, it’s our Heavenly Father.

If God first took the initiative, then we don't have to. We're freed up to do something different:

Respond.

A different kind of fuel

When loving action is taken as a response to His love - rather than our initiating - we’re freed from the limitations of human willpower as our strength. Willpower says I started this, so it’s up to me to see it through.

But when a resolution or resolve is born in us as a response to His love for us, we in that moment recognize we’ve been given the very fuel that powers our response: grace. Grace fills - then fuels - our response to Him.

If you look around Scripture long enough, you start to see the difference between God’s grace and human willpower:

• Disciples brought before the authorities lacked any and all fear as they remarked, “We cannot stop telling about everything we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:20)

• Paul remarked at being compelled by the love of Christ. (2 Corinthians 5:14)

• The early church came together in unity, despite speaking different languages, under a power beyond their own. (Acts 2)

I don’t know if any of those were New Year’s resolutions for them, but I can tell you this: those responses lasted longer than January 2nd-31st. In fact, they're still going today.

The best resolutions aren’t initiatives. They’re responses.

Until next time,

Nathan