UNBREAKABLE RESOLUTION: How to Make One for the New Year!

As the nation rises above the noise and confusion that national and international turmoil brings into America’s living room daily, what course are you setting for the next year? This is typically the time for resolutions and often times they are annual attempts to restore one’s lowest weight achieved just after high school or college. Maybe it is something like saving more money or even being a better parent, spouse or quitting smoking.
But in all of the resolutions that are made and mostly broken within 30 to 60 days, have you ever thought about making a resolution that cannot be broken? What would it look like and how would you manage it?

Before you start pouring through your old lists of resolutions to come up with an answer to the question, just pause for a moment and truly think about this. What type of resolution is unbreakable? No, it is not a trick question, nor is it something that is impossible to achieve.

First consider what a resolution is and start examining what the word means to you. It is a personal pledge to yourself to engage in an action which will define you and your commitment for the next calendar year. The next part of the resolution equation is based upon respect. Do you respect yourself enough to make a contract with yourself?

Think about it, everyone makes contracts with people all of the time. You may even do it verbally or in writing on a daily basis when you agree to call someone, take a person out to lunch, deliver a package or have dinner with your family in the evening. You make the gesture and there is an acceptance. The, contract or resolution is sealed.

So what would an unbreakable contract or resolution look like for you to make with yourself that you cannot break and you most certainly would want to see to the end of the next year?
First it has to have some degree of value to you otherwise you would brush it off in the first 30 days without even a second thought. Next it has to mean something personally so that you are at least moved to want to achieve it and follow through on the resolution. Sometimes that can mean as long as you can remember it. Is this not true of most resolutions?

Then you want to have a resolution that will be as meaningful in June and July as it was when you made it several months earlier in December of the previous year. So what could it be, you are now asking yourself?

Think about it for a moment. The Bible considers a resolution as a directive of God. In 2 Thessalonians 1:11 it says, “To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power.”

God is the starting point for the unbreakable resolution. And in order to solidify your resolution you are called to acknowledge that you are not perfect, therefore do not pursue a resolution with the inner feeling that it will fail and therefore you are a failure for yet another year.

Instead understand that by loving the gift that God has given each person, which is being able to grow in God’s wonderful grace even when you fail in your own goals, resolutions or personal contracts. God has already acknowledged that failure and still loves you. 2 Corinthians 5:21 “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

If you are forgiven by a loving God then your strength to endure the New Year no matter what series of verbal or written resolutions that you make, because you have love in your heart, then what is an unbreakable resolution?

The answer to an unbreakable resolution for the New Year is found in each and every breath that you take. You are the unbreakable New Year resolution, because your love, will, heart and your life is graced by a God whose love is unbroken.

God’s love is a guiding principle in resolution setting and it is found in Luke 10:27: “And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”

Consider your own life now and think about each moment that you draw breath in the New Year as a gift to do something that shows love, and evidences God’s love for you. By resolving to do your best, even if you feel you are not meeting your goals for that day, week or month, your life and your next attempt matters and it counts to God. Your resolution by God’s grace remains intact.

In the end your unbreakable resolution for the New Year is to let God know that you love him and you will try each day to resolve to do something which is a gift to God’s love for you no matter how big or how small. Your resolution cannot be broken because it cannot be measured in broken attempts but is one continuous unchangeable commitment to a loving God.

Go into the New Year with these thoughts in your heart as you make your resolution. Psalm 139:23-24 “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!”

Enjoy a successful New Year Resolution.

Image; http://www.flickr.com/photos/horiavarlan/4439643419/