Monday 6 January 2014

Resolution-less



“Is not your reverence your confidence? And the integrity of your ways your hope? “Job 4:6
          I gave up making resolutions many years ago.  All too often resolutions are made out of guilt, shame, those terrible whispers; “I should do…”; “I shouldn’t do…”  “I need to…”  And when the emotional fuel we’ve pumped into our intentions turns into boredom, lethargy, disappointment, frustration and more guilt, we give up on half-made promises. 
          However, many years ago, I began asking  the Lord Jesus what character trait or what changes He wanted to work into  or out of my life.  I was beginning to understand that if it was God breathed, and God-powered, the changes would come—if I remained close to the Father and co-operated with Him.
          When I first read these verses today, my initial response to Eliphaz the Temanite’s question to Job was “Yes, practicing reverence will create confidence and we can have hope if we live a life of integrity.”  The equal thought to that is; “If I keep all the rules, then everything will always be okay.”   Is it possible that is the kind of mind-frame of which making resolutions—at New Year’s or other times—comes?
          Perhaps fear plays a role in making resolutions.  In the first chapters of the book of Job, we see a man who fears God and regularly makes sacrifices to God in the hope that pain and destruction will not touch him.  So we say things to ourselves like:  “I should lose weight and exercise so that I won’t develop diabetes; won’t have a heart attack; will be healthy in my old age.”  Okay—confession—that’s what I say.  I fear the consequences of bad choices.  After all the messengers broke the news that his riches and his family were gone, Job’s reply is “That which I feared has come upon me.” 
          Yet, by the end of the book of Job, he learns that fearing God does not protect us from suffering; neither does living the kind of life of “following the rules.”  This is what Job says to God:
 “I know that You can do all things, and that no thought or purpose of Yours can be restrained or thwarted.  [You said to me] “Who is this that darkens and obscures counsel [by words] without knowledge?  Therefore {I now see} I have [rashly] uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.  [I had virtually said to You what You have said to me;]Hear I beseech You and I will speak; I will demand of You, and You declare to me, I had heard of You [only] by the hearing of the ear, but now my [spiritual] eye sees You.  Therefore I loathe [my words] and abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes.” Job 42:2-6
          As a teenager, and even in my early 20’s I could never make sense of the book of Job.  But by the time I’d hit my 30’s and had my first back surgery, I understood that suffering makes us look beyond our limited abilities to live a valuable and worthwhile life.  Pain will either make us turn away from God = “If God is good and loving, why does he allow suffering?”; or turn us to God “Jesus, You suffered on the cross, You are suffering with me now.  I need You.” 
          Growing up in a Christian home made it possible for me to “hear of God with my ear.”  But suffering brought me to the end of myself, the end of thinking that I could be a “Good Girl” in my own strength. 
          When Job had everything stripped away, and realized that God was all he had, he also understood that God was all he needed.  Job had a revelation of God in His sovereignty.  When I got a small glimpse of the sovereignty of God, it was only the beginning of understanding that being a Christian is not me trying to live a righteous life by doing good things.  Making resolutions and trying to impress God by changing myself just doesn’t work.  Rather, my confidence and trust has to rest in God’s imparting His righteousness to me because of Jesus Christ’s finished work of the cross.  Like Job, I could say “Now my spiritual eyes are opened—and seeing Your sovereignty lets me see how trust worthy You are.” 
By placing my confidence in God’s love and sovereignty, I am led into a life of reverence.  Resting in God’s salvation, in and through Jesus Christ creates hope, and brings about integrity in my walk with God, the Church, and the world. 
Here’s to a New Year with no resolutions!
Serving Jesus, Author of our faith,
Lady Helene

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