My Resolution...

is to give up...

Wait a minute. That doesn't sound right. Resolutions are supposed to be made to challenge you and stretch you. Who resolves to give up?!

Well, I do. It may sound like I am taking the easy way out, but it's harder than you think. I am giving up the prideful notion that I have any capability in myself to make my life better. People make resolutions every year to better the quality of their lives, and they don't keep them. They don't keep them because they CAN'T. It's not for lack of desire or will-power. Our will-power turns out to be quite futile, and it discourages our desires because we feel hopeless. Why am I going to do that to myself year after year? It makes no sense.

If I truly believe that Christ is sufficient to meet all my needs, then why am I struggling to "better" my life? I have fooled myself into thinking that there is something He is withholding from me. I beg and plead with him for help and strength, as if He is denying me what I need. You don't beg and plead with someone who has already given you what you've asked for. Stanford quotes in the Green Letters, "Much of our begging fails to register in heaven because it fails to spring from right relations with the Father in union with Christ in death and resurrection: in which position one simply appropriates what is already his. 'All things,' says the Apostle Paul, 'are yours. And ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's' (1_Corinthians 3:21,23)."

A. W. Tozer writes, "we are forever asking God to do things that He either has already done or cannot do because of our unbelief. We plead for Him to speak when He has already spoken and is at that very moment speaking. We ask Him to come when He is already present and waiting for us to recognize Him. We beg the Holy Spirit to fill us while all the time we are preventing Him by our doubts." I would venture to say that it is not only our doubts that prohibit, but our pride. I am sure this is true for all people, but it seems to me that especially in America we believe we are capable of so much more than we actually are. Everyone can be an all-star, the President, or make the team. We puff ourselves, as well as others, up and it makes us quite ugly people, to be honest. This gives us as children a false hope. Sure, a little boy can TRY to be anything he wants to be, but when he fails we should rejoice because now he can move on to discover what God really has for his life. I think the way we tend to do things leads to the unraveling of depending solely on God through Christ Jesus to direct our lives.

I have come to face the fact that I take life into my own hands when I ask for something that will help ME accomplish the task of making ME a better person. And it doesn't take long before I fail at it. And when I fail, I crawl back to the Lord pleading and wondering why I can't seem to fix things and why I feel so distant from Him.

All that to say, this is why I resolve to give up. I give up my "right" to a better life. I give up my pride to think that I can actually do myself any good. I give up the hopelessness that sets in after I fail. Instead, I embrace the Lord Jesus. I ask that He takes the daunting task of making me a better person. I ask that He do the work for me because I know how weak I really am. Yes, I give up... and I think that's okay.