Last night, I asked what seemed like a rather innocuous question of my son’s good friend: “Are you all ready for the New Year?” His response startled me, not because it was startling but because it made me nervous. He said, “Yeah, I still have to work on my resolutions. I have one, but I want to think of a few others.” (Well, okay, it was also startling because the young man who said this is only 21, and he is doing some deep reflecting about his future. Then again, Will goes to M.I.T.)
Here’s the part that made me nervous. Resolutions. I don’t usually make them. Every now and then, maybe, but not usually. Why? Because they make me anxious. Because they feed right into my performance mentality. Because I get real busy trying to accomplish them for a few days, then fail, then feel bad about myself, then try to work up the gumption to try again.
I thought about this review I read in Christianity Today yesterday. Christopher Benson, writing about Philip Cary’s new book: Good News for Anxious Christians, said
Because “experience is formed from the outside in,” the goal of the book is to get nail-biting, brow-wrinkled, and sleep-deprived Christians outside of themselves to hear: “The good news of the gospel is that God has already decided to do something about our lives—whether we let him or not, whether we do anything about it or not, whether we believe it or not.” God is italicized here to emphasize that our transformation is always divinely wrought, not humanly contrived. That’s why Martin Luther prayed, “I will remain with thee of whom I can receive but to whom I may not give.” Cary submits that the Lutheran doctrine of sola fide (faith alone) offers a powerful corrective to the strangely Catholicized and psychologized evangelicalism that oppresses us.
How do we follow the commandment to not be anxious about anything (Phil. 4:6)? The gospel, Cary argues, gives us permission to ignore anxiety-producing techniques because Christ is enough, period. Finding ourselves in Christ, as opposed to finding Christ in ourselves, means we’re equipped—through the flesh of Christ, the Word of God, and the life of the church—to persevere in “the trial by existence,” invoking the title of Robert Frost’s poem. Instead of “bearing it crushed and mystified,” as the poet says in the final line, we can bear any vicissitude with the love, obedience, wisdom, virtue, and beauty of our Savior. (To read the rest, go to Christianity Today)
There are patterns of my heart, tongue, and mind that need change. I would like to resolve to change them. But something in this article draws me not to be passive, but to actively pursue Christ, to urge him to change me, and to remember that nothing I do or don’t do can stand in his way. And nothing I do or don’t do can keep him from loving me. AMEN!
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