The Best Resolution

Several years ago, when a friend asked me what my New Year’s resolution was, I flat out told her that I didn’t really care to have one. I do think that resolutions are important, but my decision not to add one more thing to my checklist was intentional and firm.

I’d been dealing with unexplained health issues, and although I’d had some tests done, the exact reason for my struggles escaped me. Through prayer, it came to my attention that I’d been stressing over day-to-day things without realizing it. Anxiety was intertwined with my ‘episodes’, and I truly had been trying hard to manage everything. Everything.

My kids. My floors. My projects. My work. My exercising. I felt like a failure if one of these things wasn’t crossed off my list. I neglected connecting with others, and I rarely got out of the house because I just had too much to do. “Surely all this work will pay off eventually,” I thought. I was like a gerbil on a treadmill, wondering why I never felt like I was making headway.

Somehow, the harder I tried to make myself feel accomplished… the less accomplished I felt.

No time to rest or truly deal with the hidden person of the heart. My time spent with the Lord was always shoved into a guilt-induced reading session for a few minutes here and there right before bed. And of course, the tearful prayers at night asking God why I felt so unfulfilled. What was missing?

The well-meaning, self-helping, motivational slogans didn’t motivate me at all. Just the thought of them was sucking the life out of an already depleted me. “You can be in control! Love yourself! Take back your power! You can change anything if you just change your mind! Be the best version of yourself!”

In my experience, those are all lies.

Author and speaker Allie Beth Stuckey unpacks this painful but necessary truth in her book, “You’re not enough (and that’s okay)”, that we, in fact, aren’t enough on our own, and were never meant to be. She writes:

I had no joy. “Doing all the things” didn’t make me a better “me”. No amount of re-framing or effort made me an improved version of anything.

Furthermore, I knew that Christians aren’t supposed to serve themselves. So I threw myself into serving others. Or at least, by all appearances, that’s what I was doing. To the point of utter exhaustion. At the time, I didn’t have eyes to see that I wasn’t really serving my family. I was serving my need to be acknowledged.

In one of my tearful nighttime prayers, I asked Jesus – no, begged him in desperation – to give me something, anything! I felt so empty. So meaningless. I longed for help.

Silence. Why wasn’t God speaking to me?

The following Sunday, the pastor preached his sermon as though directly to me. He said, “I guarantee God will speak to you if you read the Bible. Because they are HIS WORDS!”

So even as I kept busy, I began listening to an audio Bible. It wasn’t long before the story of Hagar (Genesis 16) pierced my soul. Nearing the end of her strength, God intervenes in Hagar’s desperate situation. And she confesses, “You are the God who sees me.”

In the middle of my desert, where I was exhausted and dying of thirst, God reached in with a simple, “I see you,” and it broke open what I’d been so desperately trying to keep together.

Oh, I was lacking qualities. Faith, virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, and love. I had lost sight of my Saviour. I had forgotten that I was already accepted and perfectly, completely, loved. I had forgotten that I already had everything I needed. In Him.

Although I need to frequently revisit the truth I learned that year, it was one more transformative step in learning to walk more like Jesus. I heard something recently that builds on that lesson: “The goal (of the Christian life) is not to lead a balanced life. It is to lead a surrendered life.”

So, maybe I should resolve. Often. To let all the striving go. To look upon my Saviour – really look – and see that He is enough for me.

I’m not enough, and I’m not supposed to be. Because He is. And I am His.