Slideshow image

I made an actual New Year’s Resolution this year. I avoided doing this for most of my life. I have read that most resolutions are abandoned within a few weeks, and I am sure this would be true for me. I can be sure because I used to make a list of goals every year. Until one year when I was looking through all the previous lists, I noticed that the same things were on my list every year. That was pretty depressing. But, being me, instead of making a change, I just stopped making the lists.

This year, a friend texted me what resolutions she planned to make. One made me laugh. She said she wants to be a koala, because she read that they sleep 90 percent of the time. (Actually, when it started snowing the next day I texted back that I would join her.)

But it got me to thinking about resolutions. I think that when resolutions fail, it’s because of a missing ingredient. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” Paul wrote in Philippians 4:13. He could have added, because it’s true, that we can do nothing without Christ’s help.

If I make a resolution, it shouldn’t be just about what I want. It should be about what God wants. He has plans for me — for what he wants me to do, and what he wants me to be. And he stands ready to help me do it — but I have to remember to enlist his help. Otherwise, it’s like saying, “Here, Lord, you drive,” and then taking back the car keys.

And this year, I actually found a resolution I want to make. I found it in my second-favorite Christmas story. When Scrooge is standing in that graveyard nest to a gravestone with his name on it, he tells the Ghost of Christmas Past that he can change. “I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year,” he says.

Christmas is “good news that will cause great joy for all the people,” the angel told the shepherds. That good news is the birth of a Savior who paid the penalty for my sins so that I can have eternal life with him. And he commissioned all of his followers to proclaim this good news to all people everywhere.

That doesn’t mean I have to climb on a soap box and preach. God made each of us unique, and that means we each spread the news in our own unique way. This year, I will try to be more conscious of the way I do that. Christmas is news of great joy — so I will “rejoice in the Lord always,” as Paul instructed in Philippians 4:4. I can just show God’s love to people, with joy.

And Peter gave clear instructions for what to do if people question me. “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have,” he wrote in 1 Peter 3:15. “But do this with gentleness and respect,” he added.

Oh, yes, you may be wondering if Scrooge’s story is my second favorite, what is my first favorite Christmas story? You can read it for yourself in Luke 2:1-20. A story about good news of great joy. News that I will try to do better at sharing this year.