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Worthless.  New Year’s resolutions are worthless.  Goals are wonderful, but New Year’s resolutions are a corrupted form of the excellent goal.

 

Dieting is one of the favorite forms for New Year’s resolutions.  People will pig out for an entire year, then resolve that the New Year will bring healthier eating.  In October they proudly tell themselves, “Once January comes, I’m going to be healthy.”  But why not start in October?  The simple answer is that the New Year’s resolution is really another procrastination tool, as opposed to a successful enterprise.  The great majority of people abandon their New Year’s resolutions by February.  The resolutions simply act as something to make them feel good about themselves at the beginning of the year.  We should set goals as we need them and endeavor to meet them as soon as possible, instead of resolving to resolve something in the next year.

 

Why, then, do people continually make these resolutions?  Some people resolve to diet every New Year for years on end.  Quite simply, we feel pressure to make resolutions.  Those around us are finding ways to “better” themselves.  Should we not do it, too?  Won’t we look bad if we do not?  This mindset puts into motion a circle of events that leads to massive amounts of New Year’s resolutions that people soon break.  In fact, many people are not at all resolved to be better.  They simply go along with the crowd.  If you are making New Year’s resolutions, look at your goal.  Why do you resolve to do whatever it is that you are going to do?   Is it because you truly wish to become a better person, or is it just because your friends are making them, too?

 

This leads us to the understanding that New Year’s resolutions are selfish at their core.  Certainly, I find it admirable to set a goal to lose weight or to become better at something.  However, New Year’s resolutions are not really about the goals.  Instead, they have become a tool for announcing to the world, “I am the best!”  As Christians we should set important goals for ourselves as the need arises.  We should not join in announcing our wonderful selves as we resolve to do something extra in 2006.

 

Here we come to the final and most important point.  The selfishness inherent in New Year’s resolutions takes our focus off of God.  Some may object, saying, “My New Year’s resolution is to read the whole Bible this year.  How does that take my focus off of God?”  That is an excellent goal, and I commend all who make it this year.  However, titling it your “New Year’s Resolution” takes the focus off of the importance of reading the Bible in a year and places directly on how great you are for reading the Bible in a year.  Why wait for the new year?  Why not start reading the Bible in a year when you come up with the idea?  Even for New Year’s resolutions that have something to do with God, the focus is on the fact that it is “your” resolution.  In verse 8 of Psalm 16 David tells us, “I have set the LORD always before me.”  We need to do what David did.  We need to realize that anything that furthers us is really a gift from God.  Any goal that seeks to glorify Him is not ours.  It is His.  We must always keep God before ourselves.  So set some goals whenever you want to, but do not announce it to the world.  Make it about God instead of about yourself.

 

--Chris McMillion

 

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