I can't begin to count how many New Years resolutions I
have made over the years, probably the most disturbing thing is that I
seem to make the same resolutions year after year. I know there are
habits and things about my lifestyle that really need to change but for
making a New Years resolution just isn't going to make it happen. It
makes you wonder just what really the basis for change in our lives is.
It certainly is not as simple as deciding to change something and voila!
It happens. So if it is not just deciding to change in a rational way
like a New Years resolution what really brings about change in our
lives?
The truth is very few decisions; especially decisions
involving a change in life style are made using logic. As hard as it
might be on our egos real change is almost always an emotional decision.
That is one reason why the kind of mapped out witness - evangelism
programs never seem to work out the way we expect. After we have made
our nice presentation people respond politely, "It seems to make sense
the way you present it," and walk away and forget it. This is why Jesus
never approached people like the Greek Philosophers; instead he
addressed their fears and deepest desires. Not logic but love and
compassion. To put this in terms of a New Years resolution, if you
really "love" chocolate you are not going to be able to give it up just
because you think you should. It is going to take a deep emotional need
that has real life consequences to make it happen.
A good example of this is the Alcoholics Anonymous
movement. How many times, year after year do you think someone deeply
addicted to alcohol make the same resolution thinking each time, this
year will be different. For those in AA trying the same thing and
expecting different results is their definition of insanity. It just
doesn't work. The things that have a chance of working are fear, and
love. This is why loved ones gather and confront people who are caught
in a web of addiction that creates behavior that will eventually destroy
them or at the very least destroy the relationships that make their
lives meaningful.
God loves us and receives us with mercy, but God loves
us too much to leave us the way we are. Because of this our life of
faith is one of continual transformation, or to put it another way,
change. There is really only one resolution that we make as a Christian,
to trust God and through God's love and that faith, to become more
Christ-like.
AA's insistence on a Higher Power and the American
judicial systems use of AA as their primary rehab for DUI's is to me one
of the strongest indications of the truth and power that is God. There
are other systems other treatments for severe addiction but the one that
has the best track record is AA. Faith in God is the best resolution we
can make, not just for a year, for a lifetime. The other thing that AA
uses is community, we need God and we need each other as well. It is not
ourselves alone that we are trying to control; it is how the world
around us affects us. There is nothing wrong with whom we are but none
of us were ever meant to stand alone. We cannot be the people God
created us to be without God and the people of God alongside us.