Resolution, Solution, or Something Else?

Do you ever make a New Year’s resolution? If you do, do you keep it?

I chose years ago not to make resolutions because I just don’t keep them. Determination slides by the wayside and the intended outcome is not accomplished.

Praying every year to find solutions to whatever needs a positive outcome seems much more productive.

So, what’s the difference between a resolution and a solution? 

The dictionaries say that resolution is a firm decision to do or not to do something. It comes from the word resolute, which means to be resolved or determined on a course of action, set in purpose or opinion.

In other words: be determined to act on one’s intentions.

Solution, on the other hand, is a method or process of solving a problem or the correct answer to a puzzle, problem, or dealing with a difficult situation.

In other words: the act of solving something.

Only a small percentage of New Year’s resolutions see fulfillment, a humorous dichotomy, given its definition. Initially, most of them are launched with great intentions but slowly, or sometimes quickly, run out of steam.

Wanting to change a situation or something about oneself and coming up with a solution to solve or improve it is still not the answer.

Just because I WANT something to change and may be determined for it to be so, doesn’t mean it WILL change.

So then, do I have a desire for the New Year? I desire whatever the Lord desires for me and from me.

But, how do I embark on an action if I have my fingers tightly clenched around all the events of the old year? Do I really want a new thing to happen in my life?

I need more than a resolution, more than a solution. While both executed together are preferable, they must be backed with something more: they need to be backed by actual action.

I think I’ve come up with my action, which is my theme for this year and I’ve actually made it for every year. I’ve borrowed it from an old hymn…I Surrender All!

All to Jesus I surrender, All to Him I freely give;

I will ever love and trust Him, In His presence daily live.

I surrender all, I surrender all;

All to Thee, my blessed Saviour, I surrender all.

If I surrender all, then I cannot be a hindrance to the Lord’s plans and purposes for my life. If I do not surrender all, I allow my life to be filled with the same old things from the year now closed.

Desiring the best for my life in the New Year, I cannot drag from the old year all the hurts, sins, regrets, failures, and disappointments behind me in a little red wagon or a U-haul.

I must, as the saying goes, let go and let God! I must…surrender all! Then, He is able to bring His desire into my life.

Do you desire God to do a new thing in your life this year?

May this year be a year of the Lord’s desire to bring a new thing into your life as you surrender all...Lynn