New Year's Resolutions

In 2010, I had twenty New Year's resolutions. Yes. Twenty. Really.

In 2011, I had ten. And I felt very pleased with myself for my restraint and brevity.

This year, I just have four.

Last year, my word for the year was "attend". I thought all year of Psalm 123, especially verse 2, which says:

Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon the LORD our God, until that he have mercy upon us.

I wanted to attend, to pay attention.  Because I learned years ago, in mountain biking, that you go towards what you look at.

At the beginning of 2012, I don't feel like I'm even close to finished with last year's lesson, but I have a new word: faithfulness.

I feel like I don't need a great new vision for my life or startling new insights into what I'm supposed to be doing. I know what I'm supposed to be doing.  This year, I just want to do it. I want to be faithful.

My verses for this year come from the first chapter of 2 Peter:

Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,

According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: 

Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. 

And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; 

And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; 

And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. 

For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The italicized bits are the progression I want to work on this year, and the bracketing verses explain why the middle part is both good and possible.

I'm fascinated by that progression. By faith, we believe in those "great and precious promises" and what should we add to that faith? Virtue. And what does virtue lead to? Knowledge. George McDonald said that obedience was the key to understanding and I think he's right. There are so many things we don't understand until we're actually practicing them.

And to knowledge is added temperance or, in some translations, "self-control". And then patience, and then godliness and then (here's where it just makes me want to weep) brotherly kindness and to that, charity. (And the greatest of these is love.)

I remember when these verses just read like a list to me, but now they seem like a gift. They're specific, they're instructions, they're a how-to. I mean, that's not all they are: they're a description of sanctification.

But I think it's not just descriptive, I think it is - at least the first part - prescriptive. Do this.

But it is still descriptive: this is the road that the saints of God walk and this is what they gain.

And the promise at the end:  "For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." Now there's a promise for you. Wow. Makes me want to cry all over again. For joy at the mercy of God.

The Resolutions
So, four resolutions.  Here they are:
1) Love and obey God.
2) Love Adam.
3) Love my kids.
4) Write.

Everything else either falls under those or comes after those. E.g., housekeeping is an expression of love to my family. (And to myself, a bit, and taking care of myself would fall under all three of the first categories actually, but mostly the first, because the first resource God has given my to steward is myself.)

But these for things. I think they are the most important ones in my life right now. And really, the last three come out of the first one. And the first one feels a bit strange for a resolution, but it's really what I want most. And it should go without saying that all of these are resolutions I make in the spirit of those baptismal promises in the prayer book, i.e., "I will, with God's help." Not with my own strength, not ever.


I'll be honest and say I have a few more practical resolutions, but they're just out-growths of these four simple ones. I have a word-count that I'm aiming for each day, I have a household chore list I'm checking off.  But they're tools now, not goals.

Maybe that's the gift of last year's word "attend". Now I am attending, and now I know that what's important is first to fix my eyes on the Lord, and that the actions follow the attention. With God's help.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell