So, it’s that time of year again: New Year Resolution time. All the gyms are full of new members and people who are coming back after 11 months off. All the diet apps are running sales on their premium subscriptions (yeah, I looked at them too). Everyone is planning what they will work on this year, how they will better themselves, and how they will finally succeed this time. Most years I am also neck-deep in new ideas and plans and routines. I love to plan things, so this is usually a wonderful and exciting time for me. This year though I am just not into it.
I was really rather down on New Year’s this year. Things didn’t go how I had planned this past year even with me sincerely giving everything I had and doing everything right. In fact, things have never gone as I’ve planned any year. I make new plans, and I don’t follow through. I set new routines, and then I snooze the alarm. I work toward my goals and push myself to the point of exhaustion, and at the end of the year I am just as unhealthy, unorganized, and unproductive as the year before. The question that kept running through my head this year was “why bother thinking up resolutions and making plans and just setting myself up for failure yet again?”
Maybe that’s a bit pessimistic, but I am sure I am not the only one who has had this thought or felt this way. I decided not to make any resolutions this year, at least not in the normal way. (I did set some 5-year goals since that seems to take some of the pressure off of having to immediately make drastic changes.) Most importantly, I had to ask myself if I could simply be content with myself the way I am this year. As much anxiety as I have always had about being the best I can be, being all that others expect me to be, and being all that society tells me I should be, it is hard to learn to be content. That won’t keep me from trying this year though. Perhaps that itself is my New Year’s resolution: to learn to be content with who I am, how I am, and where I am.
I also have to consider what God wants from me this year. I can’t just be apathetic and stagnant. I can, however, be still. That is the message I have heard so far this year: “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). And as we are still, we get to see the rest of that message from verse 11: “The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.” As we are still, we can let God do His work in and through us and see Him walk beside us and be our refuge. God has shown me early on this year and throughout last year that He is the one who is in control, despite our best efforts and our best plans. Proverbs 16:9 says, “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.” We can plan all we want and make resolutions and try to make our wills for our lives happen, but ultimately God is the one who is in control and will direct our journeys according to His will.
What I have been able to take away from all this so far this year is that I need to learn to be still and to be content. God can accomplish many things through me just the way I am and even when I am not even trying. I don’t have to constantly try to do everything myself. I can let go all the things I want to change or want to see happen, and simply be still and let Him work because He is with me. His way and plans are perfect anyways, so why should I worry about how things will turn out if I let go? There is so much to gain from being still and being quiet. I am free to breathe, not be weighed down by obligations and irrational goals. Being content with myself gives me the freedom to feel joy instead of pressure to work harder and push myself further than I can go. So far I am enjoying this, so maybe that is a good sign for what is to come this year. I have peace for the first time in a long time, so who knows, perhaps this year will be one of much greater growth than the ones where I have fought so hard to what I want.
Musings of a Wandering Mind 