"There are times...when it's okay to flee into ourselves to survive."
Monday I was playing tennis with a friend and during a relative lull in our doubles match, mentioned in passing that I was preaching again this New Year's Sunday on resolutions. She asked me, "How many?" I said, "A lot of them," and she replied, "Oh, no, I have trouble enough with one. How can I keep up with 'a lot'?" So, for her sake and mine, I've cut the list down--from fifty to a mere twenty-two.
This year's list of resolutions comes from an 18th-century Anglican Priest named John Wesley, founder of the English reformed church we now call Methodism (or Wesleyism).
While at Oxford, Wesley gathered around him a group of earnest, devout and scholarly Christians who became known as the "Bible Moths." Eventually they were called "The Holy Club" because they met together each morning and asked themselves a set list of questions about their spiritual life--sort of a daily checklist.
I found the list both challenging and helpful and so I am recommending it as an annual checklist--to help us assess how our spiritual life is doing.
Before beginning, a couple notes of caution:
First, not everyone can or should make these resolutions an immediate part of their life. Some of us are doing our best just to survive, much less take an additional list of life requirements to keep up with.
If you are in a process of grief over the loss of a loved one, or trying to cope with age, illness, chemotherapy, or just plain hurting, don't take this as one more thing to cope with.
Like Joseph and Mary, who fled to Egypt with the Baby Jesus to wait out a particularly horrid time (Slaughter of the Innocents), there are those times in all of our lives when it's okay to flee into ourselves to survive. Then, once we have gotten through whatever physical or emotional struggle we are in, we can return and get on with life.
Hold on to the list until you are ready and able to apply it to your life.
My second note of caution is to remind us that resolutions have a deeper purpose than to be kept or not kept. Resolutions are a wonderful way for us to occasionally expand our horizons a bit, to hold up for ourselves loftier ideals than we have been using to date. They are not just another thing, like diets, to take on and fail at.
Above all, New Year's resolutions should provide us with renewed hope; hope that life can be better; hope that we will be stronger and know that God is always with us no matter how we are doing.
Now, here are this year's (1988) resolutions. (I'll read them slowly so that you might reflect a bit as we go down the list.)
Am I honest in all my acts and words or do I exaggerate?
Do I confidentially pass on to another what was told to me in confidence?
Can I be trusted?
Am I a slave to dress, friends, work or habits?
Am I self-conscious, self-pitying or self-justifying?
Did the Bible live in me today?
Do I give it time to speak to me everyday?
Am I enjoying prayer?
When did I last speak to someone else about my faith?
Do I pray about the money I spend?
Do I get to bed on time and get up on time?
Do I disobey God in anything?
Do I insist upon doing something about which my conscience is uneasy?
Am I defeated in any part of my life?
Am I jealous, impure, critical, irritable, touchy or distrustful?
How do I spend my spare time?
Am I consciously or unconsciously creating the impression that I am better than I really am? In other words, am I a hypocrite?
Am I proud?
Do I thank God that I am not as other people, especially as the Pharisees who despised the publican?
Is there anyone whom I fear, dislike, disown, criticize, hold a resentment toward or disregard? If so, what am I doing about it?
Do I grumble or complain constantly?
Is Christ real to me?
Amen.
And...A Happy and Blessed New Year to you all!
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