New Year's Resolutions

I was listening to KDKA radio as I drove to Kittanning this morning.  The hosts interviewed a psychologist from the University of Pittsburgh about why people make  new year's resolutions.  I found the discussion fascinating.  

The specialist spoke of people grasping the new year as a time for self evaluation.  He indicated that it is a time for people to compare 'who they are' to their ideal for 'who they would like to be'.  

The doctor went on to explain that this desire for self improvement serves as a catalyst for people to make a list of desirable changes they would like to make with the hope that it will transform them into their ideal self!  

Seems reasonable.

Then he reported that only ten percent of the people who make resolutions, follow up on them!  That makes for a lot of disappointed people.  

The thought has pursued me throughout the morning.  Is it true that the majority of people in our culture find a huge disparity between who they currently are and who they wanted to be or expected to be?  How sad!  

If he's right - and I think he is - could it be that we've confused what we want with what God wants?  

Consider Psalm 100:3 - "It is He who has made us and not we ourselves. We are His people and the sheep of His pasture."

When pastor, Rick Warren, published The Purpose Driven Life in 2002, it sold 30 million copies by 2007, and topped the New York Times Best Seller List for over 90 weeks!  I think he struck a nerve!  

We want to believe that God has a purpose for our lives.  

It troubles me that young people today are mapping out their futures by pursuing vocations that promise them substantial sources of income.  Even parents encourage this kind of planning in their children.  But where is the concern for what God might want from a young, committed life?  

Frederick Buechner wrote:  "The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."  Who believes that anymore?  

But, could it be true?  

A rich, young man came to Jesus full of hope and self-satisfaction.  He was a good man who had observed the Law through his young life.  He seems to have come with a sincere desire.  Jesus instructed him to sell everything he had and give to the poor.  The price was too high;  he went away sorrowful and still unfulfilled.  The question remains:  Would he have found true joy and purpose if he had done what Jesus asked?  What do you think?

Nicodemus was a member of the Jewish ruling council.  He was a religious professional.  He made his living teaching others how to please God.  He was a Pharisee;  highly respected by the people;  looked up to - admired.  Yet, when he heard Jesus teaching about being born again, he realized that something was missing from his life.  He had never been born again - he didn't even know what this meant.  So, he went to question Jesus about the meaning of this phrase. Jesus was patient with Nicodemus, although obviously disappointed with his lack of understanding.  Unlike the rich, young man, Nicodemus must have been willing to make adjustments in his life.  We find him, at the end of Jesus' life, bringing 100 pounds of myrrh to anoint the body of Jesus for burial.  Something tells me that he had begun to get it.

How about Judas?  He wanted life-change perhaps more than anyone else in scripture.  He was a radical, a revolutionary, a zealot.  He desperately wanted to overthrow the Roman oppressors.  He was anxious to see it happen by force - even violence.  His bias was that violoence would be required.  We don't know Judas' background.  Why was he so angry with the Romans?  Had they killed his loved ones?  Had they confiscated his property?  Had they deprived him of freedoms that he held as valuable?  We don't know.  All we know is that he and another apostle named Simon (not Simon Peter) were zealots who lived to see Israel be a free and independent nation again.  Interesting that Jesus would include these two in His group of Twelve!  Judas was disappointed.  Yet, divine providence brought him face-to-face with the Son of God.  Yet he missed it.  His bitterness was so big and his demand for justice so preoccupying that he missed the opportunity of a lifetime! His disappointment eventually became so overwhelming that he took his own life in despair and a sense of having missed the moment.  

The bottom line seems to be that our sense of disappointment comes from our failure to be the person God had in mind when He created us!  

I agree with the nineteenth century writer, George Eliot, who wrote:  "It's never too late to be who you might have been." 

Never!

How do you get the life you’ve always wanted?  Or better yet – how do you get to the life that God has always wanted for you? 

The fact is that most of us don’t or won’t change until we get to a place of desperation.  We have to run out of options – come to the end of our rope.  Then MAYBE, we’ll try God. 

Try God.  What a novel idea.  Try the One who made us in the beginning.  Try the One who knows us better than we know ourselves.  Try the One who’s observed our life every moment of every day;  He even watched us being formed in our mother’s womb. 

Why is it so hard to believe that God created us for His purposes?  Why is it so hard for us to yield to Him and His way? 

Is it true that God wants to give us the desires of our hearts?

Is it true that God wants us to have life and have it more abundantly?

Is it true that God wants to use us to accomplish His purposes?

Yes, to all of the above!

You can have the life you’ve always wanted. 

One of the great works of art in the Western world is Michelangelo’s Pieta, a marble statue of an anguished Mary holding the crucified Christ.  Some years ago a fanatic nationalist rushed the masterpiece and began smashing it with a sledgehammer.  Although the damage was significant, Vatican artists were able to restore the statue to near-perfect condition. 

You were created to be a masterpiece of God.  Paul writes, “For we are God’s poiema – a word that can mean God’s “workmanship,” or even God’s “work of art.”  God made you to know oneness with Him and with other human beings.  God made you to be co-regent with Him – to “fill the earth and subdue it,”  to “have dominion” over creation under His reign and with his help.  It is the goodness of God’s work in creating us that makes our fallenness so tragic. 

But God is determined to overcome the defacing of His image in us.  His plan is not simply to repair most of our brokenness.  He wants to make us new creatures.  So the story of the human race is not just one of universal disappointment, but one of inextinguishable hope.  

What does this all depend on?

It turns on our willingness to give attention to God.

One day when the human race had not heard a word of hope for a long time, a man named Moses walked past a shrub.  He had seen it before, perhaps a hundred times.  Only this time it was different.  This time the bush is on fire with the presence of God.

And Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.”  Everything turned on Moses’ being willing to “turn aside” – to interrupt his daily routine to pay attention to the presence of God.  He didn’t have to.  He could have looked the other way.  If he had looked the other way, he would have missed the Exodus, the people of Israel, his calling, and the reason for his existence!  He would have missed knowing God! 

Don't let it happen to you!  God is desperately trying to get your attention!  Don't you look the other way!  Don't miss capturing the very purpose for which He formed you!