It is cold.
The ball has dropped.
Time Square has been cleaned up and has returned to the normal hustle and bustle as usual.
The fireworks have been lit.
The food has been put away.
Work has resumed.
It’s the beginning of a new year.
At the beginning of a new year we go into this panic mode where we realize that there are 57 different things that we want to change in our life. In reality there are a zillion different things that should be changed in our life, but right now all we can focus on are the 57. We focus on them because it is January. It is the time to do such things.
My question for you is, what is different between January and December? Really, what is different between December 31st and January 1st? If I listed all of the food I ate between December 23rd and December 31st at 11:59 you would first call me disgusting and then you would fear for my arteries. So, why then on January 1st am I all of a sudden concerned with what I eat? There is nothing about January 1st that is different than the day before it. There are still only 24 hours in the day. The sun rises and sets in much the same way as the day before it. I wake, I eat, I work, I play, I sleep- the day is over. Repeat the next day.
The reason I think about eating healthy, and crafting “resolutions” is because everybody else is doing it. The twitter sphere blew up on New Years Eve and New Years day with all of the lists of things that were going to be done, or not done by each one. Even now, salads are being bought by the thousands (out of season none the less, but that’s a different soap box). Runners are donning spandex in the hopes of becoming magically fit. Gym memberships are hitting the visa card like my kids hit fruit snacks. Everybody is doing it! Therefore I feel as if I must too.
We don’t just do this with our waistline, or exercise habits. We do the same thing with our spirituality. We jump on some ridiculous routine of reading the bible in 15 days, or we say that we’ll pray 2 hours a day. We’ll go hard after our convictions for about two weeks to a month and a half, but then we fade back into the mindset of before.
The problem with this is, even though it is a good thing for me to eat better, it’s a good thing to exercise more, it’s a good thing to read through the Bible in a year, BUT if I am not convinced in my head that something needs to change, then lifelong transformative change will not take place– my waistline will continue to fluctuate, my exercise habits will remain the same and life will go on as usual, my relationship with God will remain mostly the same. I must be convinced in my heart that something needs to change before I can expect to see my habits and such follow suit.
I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to make any resolutions this year because I knew that I would break them. But peer pressure has gotten the best of me. Everyone else is doing it, so I thought I should too. The problem is that I realize that there are a zillion things that need to change in my life… I may as well focus on 57 of the zillion this year and set some goals.
The most encouraging thing I read in the last 3 days was from a good buddy of mine, J.R. Briggs. He tweeted this the other day. (follow him on twitter @jr_briggs)
“Great advice I heard for this first week of January: Don’t try to boil the ocean. Just get a few things done before Thursday.”
My goal this year is to be faithful in all of the areas of my life. I’ll make mistakes along the way, for sure, but I want to be faithful to work through them and find myself on the other side of it even just one step closer to being more like Jesus.
Stop trying to boil the ocean. Let’s start with enough for a french press.
~Peter
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