God is Resolved to Love You This New Year
How do you feel about New Year’s Resolutions? I mean, besides the fact that they rarely last?
For me, it depends on what kind of mood I’m in. When life demands a Herculean effort just to put on real pants – New Year’s Resolutions irritate me.
Some years, though, I get a burst of Leslie Knope-like enthusiasm, and resolutions seem good.
Regardless, change is inevitable for all of us. Avoiding talk of New Year’s Resolutions this time of year is like trying to avoid potholes while driving through Portland.
So how do we change for the better? Or perhaps an even better question might be, how can we be changed for good?
New Year’s Resolutions Can Happen to Us
I’m not sure that anyone is fully in charge of their own growth, maturing, or transformation. Actually, I’m pretty sure none of us are.
Now that I’m firmly in my middle-ages, I find this reality to be good news. There are some things we can do to effect some change, some growth. We’re not helpless. Fatalism has flaws, and determinism has gaps.
But we’re also not sovereign. Remember 2020?
Change is possible. Many people offer brilliant and helpful processes for how people change and how people grow.
Of all the resolutions, suggestions, motivations, and processes, I have found one that surpasses them all.
4 Paths for Progress
Our best efforts can produce a burst of temporary change and growth. That can serve a good purpose and be helpful. But there is one change agent that is irresistibly eternally transformational.
Here are four (of the many) pathways to change.
Resolved by Personal Disciple
You can learn a new skill, language, or hobby by personal discipline. Or break a habit. Smart people say it takes 18 – 254 days to break a bad habit.
Hooray for the hope that people will stop biting their nails!!
And 66 days to develop a new habit.
Alright, alright, alright! Only two months until I can be knittin some mittens!
There’s nothing inherently wrong with being determined to break a habit or start a hobby. More power to you!
2. Get Surrounded by a Different Context
The Bible says that those who walk with the wise grow wise and that a companion of fools comes to ruin.
Alcoholics should avoid bars. Gossips should avoid social media. Gluttons should avoid buffets. Pharisees should avoid doctrinal debates.
We’re sheep. People, context, and culture easily influence us.
Placing yourself in a different context can be challenging, though, because it requires a level of acceptance from a new community.
That’s hard.
I’ve had the privilege of living in vastly different cultural contexts. I’ve enjoyed taking long walks on frozen cornfields in Wisconsin and passed by people who are overtly committed to keeping Portland weird.
Different soils are more conducive to growing different seeds. We can’t and shouldn’t blame our failures on people, culture, or circumstances. However, if we hang around a manure pile, it’s hard not to smell like ..it. Doomscroll at your own risk.
3. Hit Rock Bottom and Climb Your Way Out
At some point, you’ll hit your head here. Or maybe you already have. Rock bottom doesn’t have to be the total devastation of your life. Though that does happen to many of us.
Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, at some point, the man behind the curtain gets exposed, and we must recalibrate.
People fail us
Leaders don’t live up to their calling
Hopes go unfulfilled
Sickness ravages vulnerability
Selfishness trashes what is sacred
Whether it's what you’ve done or what’s been done to you, we all must decide what we’ll do with the shards of a shattered life scattered around us.
We’ll pick up some. Leave others. Move on. To quote the great Kermit the Frog:
"Life is made up of meetings and partings; that is the way of it. I am sure that we shall never forget…this first parting that there was among us.”
Rock bottom forces resolutions.
4. Changed by Love
Finally! I have sooooo been waiting to get here. This is just THE BEST! Some say people don’t make life-altering decisions unless they face devastating consequences or ultimatums.
Adi Jaffe, Ph.D., offers this insight:
“Pain is a far more powerful motivator than logic, good intentions, or hope.”
Obviously, there is much truth in there. But it’s not the whole story. It’s missing the central character of the best story:
The God who is Love.
You can stop many motivations. Paychecks, consequences, audiences, platforms, pleasure, etc.
But do you know who you can’t stop? A lover. A love-sick lover. Everything changed for everyone throughout all of history when “God so LOVED the world that He sent His only Son.”
God’s love spoke creation into existence.
God’s love kept coming back for wayward and rebellious people.
God’s love was wrapped up in skin and bones in the person of Jesus.
God’s love was nailed to the cross.
God’s love overpowered death, broke out of the grave, canceled sin, covered shame, and reconnected all of creation to the heartbeat of God’s love.
God’s love was poured out on all people through the Holy Spirit.
God’s love will one day restore all things, marry heaven to earth, and wed God to His people.
God’s love will wipe away every tear from every eye.
God’s love will overwhelm our memories so that the former things won’t even come to mind.
God’s love has chased, changed, healed, corrected, protected, directed – utterly transformed everything about who I am over and over again.
You can’t stop a lover. You can’t stop God. When God’s love for you ignites your love for Him, no force on earth will be able to stop you.
God’s love has caught me by surprise when I wasn’t looking for it. Oh, how His sweet, playful, inviting, tender voice has ravaged my heart and rearranged my life – always for the best.
He always works for an even better version of the best life that I settled for. He is always, relentlessly giving us abundantly beyond all that we could ask or imagine.
Always.
Every good and perfect gift comes from above.
God’s love will rescue you from danger and heal your deepest, most tender, vulnerable wounds. He will take your breath away, make your heart race, and leave you speechless.
Yes – I absolutely, 110% mean that encountering God’s love will cause you to experience the most exhilarating, best form of infatuation.
Of course, God’s love is more than that. It’s more than emotional. But it is not less.
Experiencing God’s presence, being touched by His love, will cause you to dance wildly. You’ll gladly sell everything you have and give it to the poor because you’ve found a treasure that exceeds every pleasure you’ve ever experienced.
God’s love will overwhelm your regrets, wash away every stain from every mistake you’ve ever made and every way you’ve been violated, exploited, used, abused, and discarded.
Like when the woman caught in adultery in John 8 was left alone with Love. Jesus told her that He did not condemn her – and also – that she no longer needed to sell herself to jokers that only wanted to use her. She could give herself completely, entirely, relentlessly to One who would love her purely.
So can you.
His love is so far-reaching that He won’t even let our pain be wasted. His pain – Jesus’ death on the cross for us – cost Him too much to let even the slightest drop of goodness be squandered.
And I’m telling you, even just a drop of the living water Jesus gives you will quench the deepest thirst you’ve ever had.
When you wander from this love, He’ll find you.
When you rebel against His love, He’ll wait patiently for you to exhaust yourself so that He can revive your love for Him.
When you give your heart to other lovers, He’ll endure your betrayal. He’ll allow the cruel, false loves in this world to run their course and reveal their hand – so His nail scarred hands can hold yours again.
He’ll forgive. He knows that the one who is forgiven much loves much. And Jesus loves to love you so badly that He will forgive you of your worst so He can give you His best.
Because this love is infinite, there is no end. Which means there is no end to the fuel for our best transformation.
The consequences of rock bottom can run their course. Your motivation to forge or break a habit will wane. But God’s infinite love never will.
Because this love is pure, it leaves no regret. No shame. There is no need for moderation. No reason not to share it!
Words fail to describe what it feels like to experience a love that costs you everything. And yet, when you release and surrender everything to God’s love, you receive infinitely more than you released.
God’s love cancels every bad, sordid, twisted, and tainted motive while enhancing the best of what’s good, pure, lovely, and true.
Somehow, experiencing God’s love satisfies you while simultaneously expanding your hunger for Him and capacity to receive even more.
When you get lost in this love, you’re changed.
You become more patient, gentle, and joyful. You increasingly grow into the best version of your most authentic self. And that, not because of white-knuckled self-determination. But rather, because you fell in love with God.
Change is Possible in Love
This brings us back to our initial question: how can I change? The answer is another question that you must answer for yourself.
How do you fall in love with God?
No one can answer that question for you. God knows how He wants to pursue you intimately. He knows how to evoke your most fervent, holy passion.
God knows how to heal your broken heart, silence your fears, and bring beauty from the ashes you found at rock bottom.
If you want to experience the best, lasting change this new year – ask Jesus to show how much He loves loving you.
I’ll leave you to it.
