New Years Resolutions,

through the eyes of a Spiritual Director

Most of us, if we ever even pretend to make New Years Resolutions, do them on a very worldly
level. I dont know how many times Ive resolved to lose weight and exercise more! And actually those
arent bad resolutions at all though theyre hard ones to follow through on. The challenge I wanted to
offer today is to consider that, since ALL of life is spiritual, how you make decisions to do things
differently in the next year may be framed in such a way that you honor the spiritual aspects of your life
as well as plan to change some behaviors that are affecting you negatively. Im going to offer a few
examples, but you should feel free to go boldly where no man has gone before! Find a verse that
invites you to remember that God cares about ALL of your life. Learn the verse, put it in sight
somewhere where youll remember it perhaps wherever the change is most needed (I may need to put
mine in the refrigerator!) and I feel pretty sure that by the end of the year youll have made some
progress in the behavior, but youll ALSO know a new verse very, very well.

Here are a few examples:

Listen! Its the voice of someone shouting,

Clear the way through the wilderness for the Lord!
Make a straight highway through the wasteland for our God!
Fill in the valleys, and level the mountains and hills.
Straighten the curves and smooth out the rough places.
Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all the people will see it together.
The Lord has spoken!
(Isaiah 40:3-5)

Why would this be a good verse to adopt for a 2010 statement of intent?

Look at 40:12-15. Does God NEED us to do any of these things talked about in verses
3 5 for him? Then why might he tell us to do them?

How might YOU in 2010 clear a way through a wilderness make a straight highway through a
wasteland Fill in a valley, level a mountain, straighten a curve, or smooth a rough place? How
might doing so reveal the glory of the Lord so other people will see it too?

What was the original or eventual (Luke 3:4-6) meaning of this verse? How might it help you to
remember THIS as you adopt the verse as your own for 2010?

Do you believe God has something unique for YOU to do, just as he did for John the Baptist? Do you
know yet what it is? Do you want to?

One of the teachers of the law asked [Jesus], Of all the commandments, which is the most
important?
The most important one, answered Jesus, is this: Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the
Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your
mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no
commandment greater than these. (Mark 12:28-31)
How might this verse become a 2010 statement of intent?

How might you love the Lord your God with all your heart? All your soul? All your mind? All your
strength?

How might you decide to track with yourself daily, weekly, monthly? to measure how you are doing
at loving God in each of these categories?

If you are an overachiever, or if you want strength in the verse above to be a reminder to YOU about
courage or determination, you might add Romans 12:1-2 to this check-in:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of Gods mercy, to offer your bodies as living
sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any
longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you
will be able to test and approve what Gods will is his good, pleasing and perfect will.

If you had these two verses as guides, might you be able to construct a sort of examen ritual that
would genuinely help you remember that all of your life is spiritual? How might your ability or your
motivation to change particular behaviors change if this were the case? Take a few moments to check in
with yourself right now and imagine what doing this every week might yield for you!

How AM I loving God with all my heart where am I NOT doing so?

How AM I loving God with all my soul where am I NOT doing so?

How AM I loving God with all my mind where am I NOT doing so?

How AM I loving God with all my strength where am I NOT doing so?

How AM I offering my body as a living sacrifice how am I NOT honoring it so?

The Year of Jubilee: Leviticus 25.

Many people have found that a particular topic in Scripture catches their attention at a particular time in
their life. I also know of several people who have come to a time when life was changing in some
particular way one season was ending and a new one beginning who have taken up as a challenge
or invitation the instructions given to the ancient Israelites for the year of Jubilee. Some people have
done this FOR their own jubilee year (50th) but I think it can be extended to any seismic transition in
our own definition of who we are and it was meant to remind the Israelites of something and certainly it
can do that for us too. Here are a few of the instructions for the Jubilee year. What might these
instructions invite you to do, if you declared a year of Jubilee?

Free something that was enslaved

Let something lay fallow

Eat whatever the land produces on its own

Return to the land something which had been lost
Finally, I want to offer you a remarkable excerpt from Philip Yanceys Jubilee Reflections I hope
you find it as powerful, and inviting, as I did!

Philip Yancey, from Christianity Today:

When I turned 50 this year, I underwent a complete physical checkup. Doctors poked, prodded, X-
rayed, and even cut open parts of my body to assess and repair the damage I had done in half a century.
As the new millennium rolled around, I scheduled a spiritual checkup as well. I went on a silent retreat
led by a wise spiritual director.

In those days of silence and solitude, I paid attention to what might need to change in order to keep my
soul in shape. The more I listened, the longer grew the list. Here is a mere sampling, a portion of a
spiritual action plan for my next 50 years.

Come to God with your own troubles, as well as the world's. I need to find a better balance between the need
for personal serenity and a proper concern about global hunger, injustice, and environmental issues. I
look at the example of Jesus, who surely cared about similar matters while on earth. As he said to the
anxiety-prone, "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day
has enough trouble of its own."

Question your doubts as much as your faith. By personality, or perhaps as a reaction to a fundamentalist
past, I brood on doubts and experience faith in occasional flashes. Isn't it about time for me to reverse
the pattern?

Do not attempt this journey alone. Find companions who see you as a pilgrim, even a straggler, and not as a
guide. Like many Protestants, I easily assume the posture of one person alone with God, a stance that
more and more I see as unbiblical. The Old Testament tells the story of the people of God; Jesus'
parables unveil the kingdom; the epistles went primarily to communities of faith. We have little
guidance on how to live as a follower alone because God never intended it.

Allow the goodnatural beauty, your health, encouraging wordsto penetrate as deeply as the bad. Why does
it take about 17 encouraging letters from readers to overcome the effect of one that is caustic and
critical? If I awoke every morning, and fell asleep each night, bathed in a sense of gratitude and not self-
doubt, the in-between hours would doubtless take on a different cast.
For your own sake, simplify. Eliminate whatever distracts you from God. Among other things, that means a
ruthless winnowing of mail, and giving catalogs, junk mail, and book club notices no more time than it
takes to toss them in the trash. If I ever get the nerve, my television set should probably land there as
well.

Find what Eric Liddell found: something that allows you to feel God's pleasure. When the sprinter's sister
worried that his participation in the Olympics might derail his missionary career, Eric responded, "God
made me fast. And when I run, I feel his pleasure." What makes me feel God's pleasure? I must identify
it, and then run.

Always "err," as God does, on the side of freedom, mercy, and compassion. I continue to marvel at the humility
of a sovereign God who descends to live inside us, his flawed creatures. "Quench not the Spirit," Paul
says in one place, and in another "grieve not the holy Spirit of God." In so many words, the God of all
power asks us not to hurt him. Do I show that same humble, non-coercive attitude toward people of
whom I disapprove?

Don't be ashamed. "I am not ashamed of the gospel," Paul told the Romans. Why do I speak in
generalities when strangers ask me what I do for a living and then try to pin down what kind of books I
write? Why do I mention the secular schools I attended before the Christian ones?

Remember, those Christians who peeve you so muchGod chose them, too. For some reason, I find it much
easier to show grace and acceptance toward immoral unbelievers than toward uptight, judgmental
Christians. Which, of course, turns me into a different kind of uptight, judgmental Christian.

Forgive, daily, those who caused the wounds that keep you from wholeness. Increasingly, I find that our
wounds are the very things God uses in his service. By harboring blame for those who caused them, I
slow the act of redemption that can give the wounds worth and value, and ultimately healing.

My spiritual checkup offers one clear advantage over my physical checkup. From my doctor, I learned
that no matter what I do, my body will continue to deteriorate. At best, a good diet and exercise routine
will slow that deterioration. Spiritually, however, I can look forward to growth, renewed vigor, and
improved healthas long as I continue to listen, and then act on what I hear God saying.