Every January, many of us begin new diets, new habits, new hobbies, and new challenges. Of course, we can start these anytime, but there’s something special about the idea of ‘new year, new me’. Even if you’re not a New Year’s resolutions kind of person, it’s very difficult to resist the allure of setting goals or changing something as we move into a new calendar year.
If you’re anything like me, and I suspect there are plenty of you out there, you’ve already broken at least one of your resolutions.
I’ll walk you through my New Year’s resolutions:
• For the first 3 months, I planned to only eat fried food once a week. I broke that resolution in week 2.
• I’d like to read 30 books this year. I haven’t finished one yet.
• I wanted to do a particular Bible reading plan, but I’ve yet to start.
Not quite the roaring success I’d imagined on January 1st.
Setting goals isn’t really the problem for many of us; it’s sticking with them. Even more importantly, what do we do when we break them?
Proverbs 24:16 has some real wisdom for us: “For though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again…”
Generally, it’s not a sin that we’ve broken our New Year’s resolutions, but the principle here is really helpful. Just because we’ve ‘fallen’ doesn’t mean we have to stay down. When we break our goals, it can be really tempting to just give up altogether.
“I didn’t lose the weight I wanted by February! Oh well, guess I’ll just go back to the way I was eating before.”
“I didn’t read my Bible every day so far, so I’m going to put it down and try again next year.”
There are plenty of legitimate reasons we break our resolutions, but there are not many reasons for us to give up completely. Just like Proverbs said, even the righteous fall seven times. The difference maker is getting back up and trying again. This doesn’t just apply to cooking more at home and spending less at Starbucks. This is a principle of grace!
There are very few things in life we can do perfectly, but there are many things we can do consistently. We’ve got a lot of days left in 2019 – days for you to step into purpose, days where you can make a decision, days that you can change.
So, if you’ve fallen, now is a great time to get up, dust yourself off, re-evaluate, and rise again.
What New Year’s resolution are you going to pick up again? Share with us below.