Resolutions, No! Commitments, Yes!

Resolutions, No! Commitments, Yes!
Jump right in and make a commitment - a New Year has arrived!
by Marilyn Mackenzie

What are your plans for the new year? Have you planned the year with care and prudence? Or have you, like millions of others, not given a thought to the months lying ahead of you?

The year that lies ahead, if devoid of careful planning, will just speed by like all the other years of your lifetime. Soon it will be the end of the year, and again you'll be scratching your head wondering what happened. Year after year can just pass by, until you begin to wonder if you'll ever accomplish anything, unless you take the time to set goals and map a way to achieve them.

As one who God gifts with ideas in the middle of the night, I keep a pad and pencil by my bedside. I learned to do that years ago, lest I lose a great idea that comes at 3 a.m.

Recently, I had one of those moments. I awoke with the idea that we should focus on commitments for the New Year and not resolutions.

The next morning, I read what others have written this year and in past years about New Year's resolutions and related topics. I scoured books and the Internet in my quest to see what others had written.

I was amazed at the amount of research material available. I could write about the history of why and how we celebrate New Year's Eve. Perhaps I could explain how the tradition of making New Year's resolutions first began.

There were articles all over the Internet about similar topics, and I soon discovered two things.

1) Reading too much material was just throwing me into further confusion about what I should write.

2) Many of the authors sounded just as confused as I was about the writing of resolutions and how to be one of the few people who actually follows through and tries to make the resolutions happen.

Alas, what was I to do?

There is one place that I go when I have a problem deciding what is the right path. It should, of course, be the place where I begin each journey. But, I am human, and I often believe that I can begin my journey and then call on my friend to bless it. That's right, the one place I go for direction is to God, through prayer and reading His wonderful instruction manual, the Bible.

Then I had an "ah-ha" moment. Having God as one's life planner and New Year planner was the topic about which I was supposed to write. Bingo! Or as some say, "Duh!"

I opened my Bible to the back to look at the topic index and discovered something interesting. The words "resolve" and "resolution" were not listed. I did, however, find the word commitment. I shouldn't have been surprised, since I had awakened and had written on the paper beside my bed, "commitment, not resolution."

The word resolve means to decide to do something. The word commit means to devote oneself unreservedly to doing something. What a difference!

Perhaps this is why our New Year's resolutions don't work. They are merely decisions to do something, often made at ten minutes before midnight because we feel we must make some resolutions. If they were, instead, commitments, something we could devote ourselves to unreservedly, we might just take them more seriously.

First, we might actually plan them with care and prudence well in advance of the stroke of midnight. We might break them down into manageable chunks that we could definitely achieve. And, we might be inclined to ask God to help us keep them. Not many people are surprised if we tell them that we've broken our resolutions. Everyone does that. But, breaking one's commitment is different. We probably wouldn't even want anyone to know that we've broken our commitments.

There are books and articles everywhere that can tell you how to make resolutions. They will tell you which ones are the best ones to make.

Some writers believe that relationship resolutions are best. Others think that we only make resolutions because we feel there is a need to "fix" something in our lives. If you insist on carrying through with your usual tradition of making (and usually breaking) resolutions, you need only look to one of those authors for advice.

My suggestion to all of us is that we make a commitment, that we devote ourselves unreservedly, to setting aside a special time each day to study the word of God, and that we also devote ourselves to talking with God, praying, throughout the day. I know that making this kind of commitment will help us all in the other areas of our lives that need "fixed".

By leaning on Him, we can lose weight, stop smoking, find more time to spend with our families, or any of the other normal resolutions we often make. And by committing ourselves to spending time with our Lord, we have a much better chance to achieve all of the other things we need to achieve in our lives.

I hope you'll join me in making this commitment. Have a wonderful, Jesus-filled New Year!

'Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will not die.' Daniel H. Burnham


Philippians 4:13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.



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