Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

New Year's Resolutions

This Year, Hold Your Own Plans Loosely & Listen for the Quiet Voice of God

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I’m big on New Year’s resolutions. Every year I make four or five, and while I don’t always keep them past January 31 (case in point: “floss daily” has been an annual resolution for ten years running), I always have good intentions.

I also like to kick off the New Year by reading a book that will both inspire me and help me identify my goals for the year. Recently I posted a note on Facebook asking for recommendations for my January read. I specified that I was looking for a non-fiction book focusing on productivity, goal setting, and “how to figure out what to do with my life.”

I got a several intriguing suggestions in the comments, but one woman’s recommendation stopped me short. “Rebecca” (and for the record, I don’t know Rebecca personally) suggested, “Instead of choosing your own goals, pray and ask God for His goals and do that. His plan is always better than our plan.”

I admit, I bristled when I read Rebecca’s comment. It felt a little bit like I was being lectured, as if Rebecca was suggesting that as a Christian, I shouldn’t set goals, but instead should simply “go with God.” I rolled my eyes and wrote Rebecca off as a holier-than-thou wet blanket.

The problem was, days later I was still thinking about Rebecca’s comment. Turns out, she’s right, at least in part.

On one hand, I think Rebecca oversimplified the process of listening to God. To simply “pray and ask God for His goals and do that” implies that God operates like a magic genie: ask your question, rub the lamp, get your answer. Unfortunately, at least in my experience, God doesn’t download an Excel spreadsheet, complete with action steps and measureable outcomes, directly into my brain.

It seems instead that God reveals his plans much more slowly and quietly. Sometimes, honestly, it seems he doesn’t reveal them to us at all. I rarely recognize God’s plans as they unfold in the moment. Instead, the impact of his subtle work in my life is often only visible in retrospect, as I look back months or even years later.

On the other hand, I think Rebecca was right in observing that most of us, especially at this time of year, are so busy resolving, planning, and executing, we forget about God himself. So focused are we on writing our to-do lists and strategizing our goals for the year, we forget that we are not in control.

I learn this lesson the hard way over and over again. Every time my plans go off the rails and I find myself shaking an angry fist at God, I’m humbly reminded that the reason I’m disappointed is because I’ve put my faith, hope, and confidence in plans of my own making, rather than in God himself.

I still made a couple of resolutions this year (though fewer than I normally do), and I’ll still kick off the New Year with a book that I hope will help me identify my goals and priorities (if you have any suggestions, let me know!). Frankly I can’t help it; I will always be a Triple Type A planner.

But I’m also going to take Rebecca’s advice. I will incline my heart toward God, listening for the whisper of his still, small voice in my soul. And I will try to hold the plans I make loosely, trusting that God’s plans, even those yet to be revealed, are ultimately better than any I could make for myself.

Forget the Resolutions…Here’s the One New Year’s Question That Can Change Everything

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I hesitate to admit this out loud, especially because 2016 was fraught with so much tension, destruction, and heartache for so many, but 2016 was a good year for me. One of my best ever, in fact.

I say this not because of any achievements, awards, amazing book sales, or fabulous professional opportunities — none of those things happened, actually. I don’t call 2016 good because of any external accomplishments and not because of any extrinsic goals that were pursued and met, but simply because during those 365 days I was transformed deeply and wholly from the inside out.

Going into 2016, I didn’t have the faintest inkling this would happen. But coming out on the other side, I know it’s true. I am a new person on this, the fourth day of January, 2017, a different person than I was a year ago today.

I have an idea of who I am and where I am going, perhaps for the first time in my life. I have a confidence, a self-assuredness I didn’t know was inside me. And most of all, I have a peace in me I didn’t even know was possible.

This newness, this new life, is changing the way I do and think about everything.

I’ve always been a big NewYear’s resolution maker. If you’ve been reading here for a while, you might remember a post or two about that. Over the years I’ve resolved to read the Bible more, limit computer time in the evenings, go to bed earlier, get up earlier, run more regularly, be on social media less, improve my microbiome health (don’t ask) and start flossing. I’ve kept some of those resolutions (for a while at least); others I dropped before I even got started (ahem, flossing).

This year, though, for the first time in as long as I can remember, I didn’t make any hard and fast New Year’s resolutions. Instead, I thought a little bit about who I am and where I think, God willing, I’m going, and I began to put some pieces into place that might help move those plans forward.

This year, I’m less about the letter of the law and more about a gentle easing, less about forcing a stringent rubric on myself, and more about embracing the softer rhythm and pace I know is best for me.

The One New Year's Question that Will Change Everything

Don’t get me wrong. My Type A, #3-on-the-Enneagram self still loves resolutions. But for now, for this time and place, I also know they aren’t for me in 2017.

“Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that,” Paul advised the Galatians. “Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life.” (6:4-5, The Message)

Who are you?

Knowing the answer to that small but powerful question is the key, the foundation, the stepping stone to everything else in Paul’s statement and beyond. If you don’t know who you yet are, you must begin there, because no number of well-crafted resolutions can determine that quintessential answer for you.

You must begin at that daunting and perhaps even frightening place —  Who am I? — and together with God uncover the answer.

I think that’s what I did in 2016…or at least what I started to do. I stepped into that small, powerful, sometimes scary question — Who am I? — and began to uncover the answer.

And it’s changed everything.

I’m not saying I have it all figured out. I suspect this will be a lifelong journey. I suspect I’ve really only just begun. But I will say with confidence that in 2016, without even really intending to (at least initially), I made a careful exploration of who I am and the work I have been given. And now, today, as I glance backward and look ahead, I am beginning to see the fruits of that deep soul work. These fruits may not ever be evident to anyone outside my most immediate circle of close friends and loved ones, but they are there nonetheless.

So that’s my advice for you, friends, as we step with hope and optimism into this new year. Make a careful exploration of who you are. Take a deep breath and ask the hard question — Who am I? Keep asking it, again and again. Pause, listen, and ask again, until you begin to hear the faintest whisper rising up from deep within your soul.

And then begin to walk with God into the answer.

Fail Better

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A couple of weeks ago I came across last year’s list of New Year’s Resolutions. Let’s just say 2013 was an epic fail, as least as far as resolutions are concerned:

Exercise: Register and run for a 10K. Fail.

Sleep: Lights off by 10 p.m.; up at 5:45 a.m. Fail.

Health: Take a multi-vitamin and calcium pill daily. Fail.

Spirituality: Dinnertime Bible reading. Fail.

Work: Off the computer between 7-9 a.m. and between 3:30 – 9 p.m. Fail times ten.

Like I said, epic fail.

The thing about failure is that it can really set you back (no kidding, right?). You can look at all the ways you missed the mark, and you can conclude you’re a loser with a capital L. A flub. A big-fat-never-going-to-get-anywhere failure. A why-should-I-even-bother-trying disaster.

Or, you can make a different choice. You can choose, as writer Dani Shapiro says, to fail better.

At first glance that doesn’t make a bit of sense, does it? Fail better? What good is that? you might ask. I don’t want merely to fail better, I want to succeed. I want to move forward. I want to overcome, excel, get ahead, reach my goal, surpass my goal.

Fail better? No thank you very much.

But the hard  truth is, success isn’t possible without failure first. To fail better, as Shapiro says, “to be willing to fail — not just once, but again and again, over the course of a lifetime” is key. Failing again and again, failing better, is a necessary part of the process.

J.K. Rowling’s manuscript for Harry Potter was rejected 12 times before it was eventually published, and even then, her editor advised her to get a day job, predicting she would never make a living writing children’s fiction.

Steve Jobs was fired from Apple, the multi-billion dollar company he’d built from the ground up. “I was a very public failure,” he noted in a 2005 commencement speech to Stanford University graduates.

Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor because, “he lacked imagination and had no good ideas.”

I don’t need to tell you how each of these people pressed on with tenacity, putting one foot in front of the other despite the fact that they undoubtedly felt like a big, fat failure at the time. And you can bet these epic failures aren’t the only ones they endured along the way. These are only the failures we know about.

Even the big-wig apostle Paul failed. He persecuted and murdered Christians for years before he met Jesus on the road to Damascus. Then, after his dramatic conversion, he continued to fail, acknowledging that even with the best intentions, he failed time and time again.

“I don’t really understand myself,” he admitted in his letter to the Romans, “for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate…I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.” (Romans 7:15, 19)

Can’t you hear the frustration in his voice? The despair? The complete and utter disappointment in himself?

But Paul’s story doesn’t end there, in defeat. He doesn’t give up; he doesn’t let failure overcome him. Instead, he presses on, determined and faithful. “No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it,” he tells the Philippians, “but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead.” (3:13) Paul presses on. He resolves to fail better.

Rowling, Jobs, Disney and yes, even Paul, remind us that failure is not only inevitable but necessary, and not only in work, but across the spectrum: in our jobs, in parenting, in marriage, in friendship, in faith. Failure is always, always part of the recipe for success, yet we need not dwell on our shortcomings. We need not obsess over where and how many times we’ve missed the mark. Instead, we reflect, we try to learn from the missteps, we take stock, and then we press on in faith and hope.

::

My 2014 Resolutions:

1. Improve microbiome health with regular probiotics.
2.  Exercise: Run 4-5 days/week.
3. No computer 7-9 a.m. and 4:30-9 p.m.
4. Daily morning Bible reading 6-6:30 a.m. &
#TheJesusProject memorization
5. Fail Better

And with Holley Gerth’s new link-up here.

New Year’s Resolutions and the One Word…or Not

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“How about you? Would you like one?”

The lady wearing the white apron and the hair net behind the Super Saver bakery counter holds out a  chocolate chip cookie.

“Oh, no thanks…New Year’s resolutions and all,” I say, thanking her for the cookies for the boys.

“All right then,” she says, laughing as I push my grocery cart away, “see you in February.”

I’ve always been a New Year’s resolution kind of girl. I love the idea of a fresh start, a new beginning, the chance for a clean slate. I typically don’t make one resolution – I make a half-dozen, sometimes more, every year.

I know what you’re thinking… “So do you actually keep all those resolutions?” And the answer is: yes and no.

Every year I resolve to floss, and every year I run the smooth, white thread through my teeth vigilantly for a week or two, and then give up. This year “Floss” didn’t even make it onto my list. I’ve finally accepted the fact that I am a Person Who Only Flosses Three Days Prior to Visiting the Dentist. On the other hand, two years ago I resolved to read the Bible every day, and I kept true to that one, more or less.

So here are my 2013 Resolutions. I typically make at least one resolution in each of three categories: Physical Health, Work Life, Spiritual Life:

Physical Health:

  1. Take a multi-vitamin and calcium pill daily. [This, too, makes it onto my resolution list every year, and it usually falls by the wayside after a month or two. I’m getting old, though, so I feel like I need to start shoring up my bones.]
  2.  Sleep: Lights off by 10 p.m.; up at 5:45 a.m. [I’m yearning for more quality quiet time in the morning before the boys get up, which means getting to bed earlier so I don’t hit the snooze button 46 times.]
  3. Exercise: Run 4 mornings/week. Register for the State Farm 10 Mile race in March [I originally intended to run the Lincoln Half Marathon, but it was full two days after registration opened. What’s with all the Lincoln exercise nuts anyway?]

Work Life:

  1. No computer between 7-9 a.m. and between 3:30 – 9 p.m. [This is probably the most important of my resolutions this year, prompted by my boys’ persistent complaint that I am “always on the computer.” I’ve resolved to limit my work day and computer time to the hours they are in school and after they are in bed. I suspect this will take a huge amount of discipline on my part. When I told them about my resolution, their unbridled joy and excitement made me feel like a complete troll of a mother, but it also steeled my determination to stick with it.]

Spiritual:

  1. Continue Sunday Sabbath practice. [Back in November, after reading Keri Wyatt Kent’s Rest: Living in Sabbath Simplicity and Mark Buchanan’s The Rest of God, I started a Sunday Sabbath practice. It’s been really fruitful so far – you can read more about it here – so I am excited to keep up the practice for the whole year.]
  2. Read The Message. [A few days before Christmas I finished my first-ever complete read-through of the Bible. It took me close to two years (I’ll be writing more about this next week). This year I want to read the Bible again, using The Message translation.]
  3. Dinnertime Bible reading using The Message. [More on this topic next week, too.]

Now. Some of you may have heard about the One Word practice. Basically the idea is to choose one word on which to center your spiritual growth for the year [read this post for an example]. Last year I chose the word “Surrender,” which eventually morphed into “Obey.” This year, though, I’m stumped. I’ve considered “Discipline,” “Moderation,”  “Balance” and “Sabbath,” but truthfully, I’m not really feeling any of those. So for now, I’m waiting. Maybe my “One Word” will present itself over time. Or maybe God’s trying to tell me that he wants me to stick with “Obey” (the fact that I’d rather not leads me to suspect I’m stuck with Obey for another year).

What about you? Do you make New Year’s Resolutions? Did you choose One Word for 2013? 

Sharing over at Ann’s place today, for her Walk with Him Wednesday series: The Practice of New Habits.