Each year millions
of people in the USA make New Year’s resolutions. In fact they are so popular
that U.S. government's official web portal, USA.gov, has decided to get
involved – surprise, surprise. They are giving advice on ten resolutions that
are supposedly popular every year. They posted, “Here’s information that can
help you achieve your goals in 2015.” The ten goals they selected were: lose weight;
volunteer to help others; quit smoking; get a better education; get a better job;
save money; get fit; eat healthy food; manage stress; manage debt; take a trip;
reduce, reuse, and recycle; and drink less alcohol. It is rather hard for me to
take advice from an agency that struggles and fails on a regular basis to
achieve their stated goals and campaign promises. Perhaps it is easier to give
advice to others rather than maintain discipline in areas that are our own
personal responsibility.
According to the University of Scranton
and the Journal of Clinical Psychology, 45%
of Americans usually make New Year’s resolutions, 17% do so infrequently, and
38% absolutely never make them. Perhaps the fact that only 8% of those who make
resolutions actually succeed in achieving them puts a wet blanket on the idea
of a New Year’s resolution. However, there is an upside to making a resolution.
According to the same study, “People who explicitly make resolutions are 10
times more likely to attain their goals than people who don’t explicitly make
resolutions.” That doesn’t make sense to me. If I do not make a resolution in
the first place, how would I even know whether or not I did or did not achieve
a goal!
I have turned over so many “new leaves” at
this time of the year that I could probably “foliate” a good size forest. The
problem as I see it is that instead of turning over new leaves on the same old
tree or plant, I would have a better chance of making significant and lasting
change if I were a new species altogether! I guess you could say new leaves on
a poison ivy vine are still going to produce the plant’s oil to which many are
allergic and cause an itchy rash. To use a totally different analogy, putting a
pretty ribbon on a pig still leaves one with a pig and does not produce a
pretty little girl!
Yet, we expend lots of effort and invest
large sums of money hoping that somehow we can act differently without becoming
a different individual. The Bible addresses this with a question in Jeremiah
13:23, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then also
you can do good who are accustomed to do evil.” The gist of the prophet’s words
is in essence unless our nature is changed it is unlikely we will be changed.
Change that is lasting comes from the inside out not the outside in.
Does this mean we are hopelessly doomed to
a life of failure being bound by the nature with which we have been born? No.
In fact another prophet, Ezekiel, talks about how real and lasting change can
come about through God’s intervention. Speaking to a nation on a path to
destruction because of their rebellion against God’s laws, he issues a
statement of hope indicating that God can change them. He reveals that this
involves a process whereby the very nature of the nation’s sinful rebellion is
changed by God working in its heart – from the inside out. Ezekiel put it this
way, “I (God) will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all
your uncleanness, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give
you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the
heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my
Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey
my rules” (Ezekiel 36:25-27). In order for people to make lasting change they need
more than resolutions. They need a life transformation where they can now see
and live life differently. This is the way God works – from the inside out.
A New Testament writer, Paul, was a person
whom God had transformed. He testified before King Agrippa in Acts 26:1-23 of
the change of nature that occurred in him. Earlier in a letter he wrote to a
church explaining that this process involved more than a resolution; it
involved a transformation. He wrote, “If any man is in Christ, he is a new
creation; old things have passed away; behold all things have become new” (2
Corinthians 5:17). Jesus also spoke of the need for transformation to a
religious leader, Nicodemus, saying he needed a new nature and thus had to be
“born again,” or “born from above” (John 3:3,6,7). Too often we conclude that
outward adjustments will generate permanent change. At best it is like a “coat
of paint” being applied to a wooden board; it lasts for a while but will need
touched up in the future. What is needed is a different kind of siding that
eliminates the need for paint and future touch ups.
Perhaps you have decided to turn over a
new leaf in the coming year. I do not want to discourage you from that resolution.
In fact, the scale in my bathroom indicates that a change needs to be made by
me before I can no longer look down and see the scale! I simply want to
encourage you to consider a change that will be more than an external, temporary
adjustment to life. Consider a change that will have even larger benefits and
eternal consequences. Those are changes that God can make in you if you allow
Him to work in your life. Remember, we need transformation more than
resolutions.
