The 8th Day of Christmas - Giving Up on New Year's Resolutions

 It is a recurring theme each year at this time of year. It is the time of New Year’s resolutions. We view the New Year as an opportunity for a new beginning. Taking advantage of this opportunity, we make some kind of resolution. Our resolution is to do something we believe we need to do or ought to do but don’t do. We resolve to change something we do or don’t do.

Our resolutions grow out of something deep inside us – something of which we are generally unaware. That “something” is our struggle with being human.

Being human comes with some default settings that are nonnegotiable. We can’t change them. They just are.

What are these default settings?

To be human is to be in process, not yet full grown. Consequently, we have to learn and grow, moving from where we are to a more mature place on the journey. The learning is foundational to the growing. For example, a young child who crawls has to learn to balance and stand on her feet. She does this by using a chair to pull herself up onto her feet and holding onto it as she “gets the feel” of standing. Once the child has learned the skill of balancing, she can take a step. She can move from crawling to toddling – walking but not too steadily or with much assurance. Toddling gives way to walking which gives way to running. What is true on the physical level (learning to walk) is also true on the emotional-relational-spiritual level. Once we stop learning, we stop growing emotionally-relationally-spiritually. We become stagnant. We get stuck in how we think and how we live. Our growth - emotionally-relationally-spiritually - is stunted.

To be human is to fail. Not being full grown means there are dimensions of our lives that are not yet developed. It translates into things we do not understand, areas where we are weak, aspects of life in which we are inexperienced and inadequate. As a result, we make mistakes. We fail. We don’t always get a perfect score or make a 100.

To be human is to be limited. We do not have unlimited energy or stamina or strength or knowledge or patience or forgiveness or ability to love another. We do not have unlimited anything. Our energies get drained. We get tired. When we do, we have to renew our depleted energies. We have to refuel. We are not all-powerful or all-knowing.

Our limitations translate into needs – the need to rest, to eat, to sleep. Thus, to be human is to live with needs. Our needs extend beyond the physical realm. We have the need for relationship, for connection, for touch – which means a need for others. We have the need for stimulation, for pleasure, for challenge. We have the need to be creative and productive, to develop and use our unique abilities, to contribute to the world around us in some significant way. Our needs mean we are not self-sufficient. They require us to receive from others.

As humans, we cannot escape these default settings. Thus, the issue is how do we deal with the reality of our default settings.

Many of us try to ignore these default settings. We live as though these settings do not apply to us. This inclination is reflected in our tendency to idolize athletes who push beyond physical limitations to “greatness.” It is evident in how we push ourselves and our bodies, ignoring all the indications that our energies are depleted. This inclination produces perfectionists, workaholics, control freaks who fight to make everything “right,” people who don’t know how to say “no” or set boundaries, people who give but can’t receive, burnout, self-neglect and self-abuse, broken bodies – all because we expect more of ourselves “than is humanly possible.” This inclination is reflected in the garden story. The serpent said to Eve, “You will be like God” (Genesis 3:4). To be like God is to escape being human. It is to be all-powerful and all-knowing – always adequate, always capable – not in process, with experiences of failure, with limitations, with needs.  

(BTW: perfection is only a word in the dictionary. The New Testament word translated as “perfect” carries the idea of maturity, not being flawless.)

Another way we deal with these realities of being human is with resolve to do better, i.e., New Year’s resolutions. Through self-effort, we determine to move beyond what we view as unacceptable. For example, seeing our body as unacceptable (that is, not conforming to social expectations), we resolve to diet or to give up sweets or to change what we eat or to go to the gym or to be more active in order to get our body back in shape. Success in these resolutions is dependent upon the strength of our resolve, the degree of our self-discipline, and the consistency of our self-effort. The reality is, most of these resolutions fail. A key factor in these failures is our refusal to deal realistically with what it means to be human.

Beneath our resolutions is generally some form of self-loathing and self-condemnation. We judge ourselves harshly for failing to do what we know we need to do or should do. That self-condemnation is compounded when our resolve fails. The failure accompanied by the self-condemnation fuels a deep-seated sense of shame. Shame is about being – our sense of who we are. It is the sense that we are no good, that we are flawed, that we are inadequate, that we are incapable of measuring up, that we are not loveable. It spawns old messages that say we will never be enough, that we will never get it right, that we will never amount to anything, that no one will ever love us. Shame tells us that we are unlovable, that we are a hopeless failure. Interestingly, shame pushes us to ignore our limitations (as described above). We view any hint of a limitation or inadequacy or failure as evidence that we are no good. Thus, we strive to eliminate any hint of imperfection.

Another way to deal with the default settings of our human condition is to recognize them and accept them. In other words, it is to make peace with being human – including its default settings. We make peace with being in process, with failure, with our limitations, with our needs.

Making peace with being human calls for self-awareness as we listen to our bodies, our emotions, our inner spirit, and the Spirit who lives in us. It calls for balance – giving and receiving, doing and being, producing and renewing. It calls for learning and growing.

Making peace with being human involves living out of grace rather than expectations and demand. It involves forgiving our failures when we don’t measure up, allowing those experiences to become opportunities to learn. As we learn, we grow. As we grow, we are able to do what we could not do before.

Making peace with being human calls us to live by faith, with the quiet assurance of hope. Hope is the forward look of faith. It sees beyond what is to what will be as we learn and grow under the guidance of the Spirit. It embraces the present reality as just another stage of the journey on the way to the ultimate destination of emotional-relational-spiritual maturity.

Making peace with being human involves living in glad dependency upon God as beloved children of God. It is to trust God’s steadfast, faithful love, God’s abundant grace, God’s forgiveness so freely and extravagantly given, God’s limitless generosity.

In this New Year, let’s resolve to give up resolutions. Instead, let’s make peace with being human as we trust God’s grace and the Spirit’s guidance. As the apostle Paul said, let’s keep in step with the Spirit (Galatians 5:25 NIV), knowing the Spirit is leading us into Christ-like maturity.