How did your New Year’s resolutions go? If you made such resolutions, there is a good chance they did not go so well. Very few people follow through on their New Year’s resolutions. We are only 2 weeks into the New Year, but for many the newness and the freshness of the new year has already worn off.
The reason so many resolutions fail is because they are motivated by guilt. We are good at piling guilt upon ourselves. Think of all the “shoulds” you have in your life. For example you might say to yourself:
- I should eat better
- I should exercise more
- I should go to church more
- I should go to bed earlier
- I should read my Bible more
- I should watch TV less
- I should work harder
Should, should, and more should! There are a lot of shoulds. After I shared this in recent sermon,one of our church members came up to me and said to me that you should never should on yourself.
Maybe one new years resolution to make is to take should out of your vocabulary. Anything that is motivated by should will never work. Motivation by guilt is not really motivation at all. If you are doing something out of guilt it will not fuel you. It will only deplete you. You end up dong a greater disservice to God, yourself, and others.
This is not to say we should not strive towards goals and resolutions. It is a more a matter of looking at our inspiration. With any goal we will inevitably enter the messy middle. We will lose the motivation and the desire. It is in this moment that we reconnect with what fuels us. We are going to need something more than guilt to fuel us in that moment.
The thing about Jesus is that he turns our got to’s into get to’s. He tells the parable of a man who finds a valuable treasure in a field (see Matthew 13:44). The man then goes away and gives all he has to buy that field. Now that man does not grudgingly give everything he has. He gives everything he has with joy because he knows that he is getting so much in return.
The greater motivation for the man was not buying the field, but the treasure that was found in the field. If you find yourself struggling with goals and resolutions, go back and reconnect with the “why.” What is the preferred future your goal or resolution will move you towards? What benefits and privileges will you experience? It is not guilt, but vision which will carry you through. If that vision is God’s vision, you can’t go wrong.
Marti says
Thank you so much for this devotion. It is so true. I am a member of Al-Anon and that is one of the things we are encouraged to do, examine our motives, and don’t “should on ourselves”.
Your E Devotions are very good, make me think, and I look forward to them. May God continue to bless you as you study and share.