Keep Your New Year's Resolutions Positive

Written by Rebecca Ingram Powell

This article is courtesy of ParentLife magazine.

Who can resist the possibilities of a New Year? It is a new beginning, a time of planning, preparing, and prayerfully considering the days ahead. What is on your agenda for the next 12 months? Perhaps you are resolving to keep a clean house, lose weight, and be nice to your in-laws. New Year’s resolutions can be a positive experience — if you can manage to keep them.

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Sometimes, however, we get so caught up in making lists of resolutions that we are overcome by a spirit of discontentment. For example, resolving to keep the entire house clean while daily tending to the needs of small children or holding down a full-time job requires a Herculean effort and possibly more than one person!

It is easy to begin making excuses for failure to reach an unreachable goal: “Well, it would be easier to keep this house clean if I had more cabinets and closet space!” Soon the home you once loved is no longer good enough.

In the same way, resolving to lose weight can lower your self-esteem when you expect dramatic results in a short period of time. It never works that way! Before you know it, you have given up, and there you sit with a plate full of brownies on your lap.

Resolving to get along with your in-laws requires not just your determination, but theirs as well. Unfortunately, you cannot make resolutions for other people. The truth is that a perfect life will not be found in a wish-list of New Year’s resolutions.

But what if everything was perfect? What if your home was paradise, you had the perfect body, and there were no in-laws to deal with? Would you be satisfied with your life?

All of this was true for the first woman, Eve. Created to dwell in Eden, God’s perfect garden, she had a flawless figure, an immaculate home, and no in-laws! Her life was perfect, but she did not know it. She was ignorant of anything less than excellent, yet she still was not satisfied.

Imagine Eve’s crash course in reality once she and Adam were banished from Eden. Suddenly, she had the advantage of a perspective enhanced by hindsight. If she only had realized that she had everything to lose, perhaps she would have decided to be satisfied with life in the garden paradise.
 

Is it possible, dear Mom, that you are living in a garden and do not realize it? Take a moment to look around at your blessings before you begin assessing what you want to change.

1. Longing for a clean house? Set realistic goals for yourself, remembering that happy, healthy children are more important than having everything in its place. Thank God for the home He gave you and ask for His help in maintaining a comfortable level of orderliness.

2. Starting a new diet? Ask God for time to exercise. Take your baby with you to stroll at an indoor track. Play with your children! They will never turn down an invitation to ride bikes or shoot baskets with you.

3. Resolving to change some relationships? First, ask God to change your heart. Then resolve to love and pray for the challenging relationships in your life. Be determined, by God’s grace, to accept people the way they are.

This is your garden. These days with your children are your time to sow an eternal harvest in the fields of paradise. Rest in what you have. Find satisfaction in the blessings of your life. Resolve to be content.

Rebecca Ingram Powell is a pastor’s wife, mother of three, and the author of Baby Boot Camp from B&H Publishers. Visit her web site at www.rebeccapowell.com.