Let's Be Submitters, Not Quitters

It's January 2nd. Are you well on your way to accomplishing the resolutions you set yesterday? Have you gotten that garage cleaned out? Made your first million? Prepared all those recipes sitting in your social media accounts? Exactly, what have you gotten done?! Tick-tock, tick-tock! The second Friday in January is, apparently, known as Quitter's Day. This day designates the point at which 80% --or so the statisticians tell us --of people who made New Year's resolutions have given up on them. Two weeks or less! Time is important to us. We love statistics and results. These things help us set goals and stay on track. Time helps us to know what time to begin working or, even better, to stop. Along with measurements, it helps us keep track of progress. Have we been successful? Do we need to tweak something to improve results? But these are simply units of measurement. It's great to want to meet objectives within a certain timeline, but we can't let our expectations alter the journey.

I've mentioned before my experience with addiction. Breaking addiction requires a little more than setting a resolution, behavior modification. Though people have successfully "kicked" addiction to a particular substance by managing people, places, and things, often there needs to be a change in neural pathways. Stinkin' thinkin' perpetuated an addiction, or experimentation became a habit which became an addiction which led to some really stinkin' thinkin'. However you slice it, addiction tends to permeate thoughts and actions; it's psychological and physiological. Mind and body should be given attention when trying to create a more balanced and healthier lifestyle.

All of this to say, in my struggle with a far too common, all too acceptable substance, food, I have tried many things. Bulimia hides the bingeing with purging and excessive exercise. What damage the salt, sugar, fat, and chemicals in the foods I consume doesn't do, the vomiting, use of laxatives, and joint-deteriorating exercise does. As "hidden" as the addiction may be, the body clearly recognizes its effects. I have "promised myself" I would only eat certain foods, or only eat between the hours of 9 and 2, or fast on Sundays. I have committed to, when the temptation to binge hits, putting on praise music or praying for others or reciting Scripture. Nothing works. At no point have I ever been able to say, It is no longer a temptation for me work because I created new habits. I'm not sure that's how it is supposed to work. Religion doesn't renew a heart in and of itself. That's what actions and counteractions are --religion, devotion or strict adherence to a principle or practice. Should we develop new habits? Absolutely! But those habits by themselves rarely transform the thoughts and pathways in our brains that have walked hand-in-hand with addiction, that are, in part, addiction. Sin is an addiction we have all experienced. How to we "kick" that? 

Philippians 4:8 tells us, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things. The truth found in Scripture --Who am I? Who is God? What has He done for me? --is to be the content of our meditations. If we need to stop buying certain foods or take the pile of clothes off the treadmill or throw out every ounce of liquor, then by all means, we should do that. If it's necessary to talk to a counselor, find a reputable one. If we need friends to hold us accountable, we should find that group. But Romans 12:1,2 tell us we must submit both body and mind for renewing and transformation. And there is grace, perfect grace from our Lord to carry us on the way. And that way can be long. That way can require a copious amount of discipline and study and confession and brothers and sisters to hold us accountable. That way can bring people into our circle that are not necessarily people we would choose, but people who will labor with us. That way can be a daily reminder of how much we need a Savior and a daily challenge to grind for the sake of godliness. And that way can become a testimony of God's blessing and deliverance for those who will follow after Him and His ways.

So, I'm not saying to chuck the calendar or forego the setting of goals. I'm not saying we should sit back and God will do the heavy lifting while we entertain whatever sinful behavior we worship in His place. But I am saying, don't miss the journey; and it is a journey. Don't miss the knowledge and the glory He reveals to us as we pursue Him, heart, mind, soul, and body. And DO NOT give up! In Jesus' name!  

Photo courtesy Steven Ganski, Jr.

Midweek: A Resolution to Surrender

When considering our resolutions for a new year, I pray many of us leave room on our list for upgrading our spiritual health. As we begin to think about what we would like to work toward in these next twelve months, I encourage you with the words of a Franciscan monk: 

If you feel the call of the Spirit, then be holy with all your soul, with all your heart, and with all your strength.

If, however, because of human weakness you cannot be holy, then be perfect with all your soul, with all your heart, and with all your strength.

But, if you cannot be perfect because of vanity in your life, then be good with all your soul, with all your heart, and with all your strength.

Yet, if you cannot be good because of the trickery of the Evil One, then be wise with all your soul, with all your heart, and with all your strength.

If, in the end, you can be neither holy, nor perfect, nor good, nor wise because of the weight of your sins, then carry this weight before God and surrender your life to His divine mercy.

If you do this, without bitterness, with all humility, and with a joyous spirit due to the tenderness of a God who loves the sinful and ungrateful, then you will begin to feel what it is to be wise, you will learn what it is to be good, you will slowly aspire to be perfect, and finally you will long to be holy.

If you do all this, with all your soul, with all your heart, and with all your strength, then I assure you, my brother, you will be on the path of Saint Francis, you will not be far from the Kingdom of God.

~ A Franciscan Monk

A Blessed New Year to you and yours!

A Year in Review, a Lifetime in the Making

As I publish this, there are a few more hours of 2024 remaining, but I feel relatively safe in saying, it can't get any more exciting than it's been. It had its share of cliffhangers and drama. There were times when I wished for "the good old days" and times when I wished for a brighter future. Some days had me on my knees, begging for God to do something; other days had me praising Him for all He has done and not done. But last week, as we made our way home from a city just a bit west of where I once lived, the message of God's providence couldn't have been clearer.

On those same city streets and meandering country roads, while in my twenties, I lived an incredibly selfish life. Working as vigorously as I played. It was all about me. Fast forward to my hand gripping my husband's, tense and anxious, retracing steps, but this time in obedience. Traffic I would have, in the past, easily and illegally overtaken, drivers I would have recklessly cut off, we followed slo-o-o-o-wly, as I prayed, Lord, You have a plan for this delay. Let it be as You work. Fast forward to those standing with us and those who remained at home, whose prayers have become such a normal but certainly not undervalued or unappreciated part of our life. Fast forward to a courtroom emptied, tears shed and minds exhausted, when we drove home in the darkness led by the Light. I saw the "ghosts" of those old days and marveled at the journey, an adoption journey which I would have said began with my husband and I more than three years before. But as I looked out into the night, I was reminded it had begun long before that. It began with my adoption.

Imagine adopting a sweet little infant into your home. So cuddly and innocent. Sure they cry, sure they go through diapers, but they don't have a lifetime of addiction or a rap sheet. God peoples! Not that babies aren't people --of course I don't mean that --but adopting a self-absorbed twenty-something, or a broken and bitter forty-something seems a bit different to me. There's a lot of stuff to be unlearned in addition to what must be learned. And the adoptee has to be compliant! Ephesians 1:3-14 tells us we are chosen by God Himself not because of our previous qualifications, but according to the good pleasure of His will. Simply because He wants us! And He hands to us the keys to the kingdom, so to speak. We have the Father's authority and riches as earthly heirs --adopted or natural --have from their father. No resume' or previous work experience necessary. Through this process, and our compliance with that which God wills, we are changed to look more like our Savior, the only begotten of God: we take on a family resemblance!

Scott and I contacted an agency long before ever laying eyes on the young man who is now our son, expressing our desire to do life with the child God would send. Our Father predestines and pursues us, choosing His children by name long before they are even aware. He draws us to Himself before we draw our first breath; He uses our past without Him to bring Himself glory and shape our life with Him (similar to, but much better than, the way we work to overwrite our young man's difficult past remembrances and setbacks with re-dos). The Father sometimes leads us to retrace our steps, taking us just a bit farther than the last time we passed through, in order to bring us closer to how we will look in a future portion of eternity.

As you spend the remaining hours of this year, set aside moments to quietly take stock of the past twelve months. Pay special attention to the long ago past. How did you get to where you are today? Have you been someplace like this before? How is the plan of God evident in what has come to be? And spend some time thinking what may come to be. What is God longing to do in your life? What has He encouraged you to do that maybe you have been slow in obeying? What things have you not surrendered to Him? What patterns do you find being repeated, potential lessons preparing you for the future? Commit this next year to His use; God has prepared a lifetime for you and desires to prepare you for it.