“From the end spring new beginnings,” Pliny the Elder claimed two thousand years ago. His sentiment is one that applies in many situations, not the least of which is the passing of the old year into the new. In ancient times, friends made amends with each other, debts were paid, and relationships were restored as a part of one’s new year’s resolutions. Wrongs were made right, and justice, even mercy, was acted out. I don’t know what early Christians thought about such annual rituals, but I suspect that many of them wondered why their unbelieving friends waited till the end of the year before they decided to do the right thing. Nevertheless, there was something that was good and proper about it all: new year’s resolutions brought into focus one’s relationships with others.

Today, the practice of that revered of all secular holidays has turned narcissistic: “My new year’s resolution is to lose 30 pounds, to exercise more, to spend less, to earn more, to get better grades.” On the one hand, the lists are endless; on the other, they all have an end, and a quick one at that. Our resolutions usually end before January does. If we were honest with ourselves, we would call our new year’s resolutions new month’s resolutions. At least we wouldn’t feel like such failures, for there would be a sense of accomplishment if we could last two weeks! Health clubs report a rather spiked attendance during the first few weeks of January. But few folks stay on and really change their habits. But that’s a good thing because the regulars can get back on the machines again without interruption from all those people filled with good intentions and no plans.

Then, there’s the particularly Christian spin on this annual facade of repentance. “I’ll read my Bible more, pray more, give more to the church, witness more, etc.” I must confess that I have run the gamut of the resolutions over the years, from the fully self-absorbed goals to the slightly less self-absorbed Christian goals.

My pastor years ago, Dr. Joe Aldrich, once said, “When you flee temptation, don’t leave a forwarding address.” There’s much wisdom in that simple aphorism. If we are trying to make a clean break of certain habits, it does us no good if we don’t think through all the steps necessary to succeed. The habits of our lives are deep grooves on a path. Unless we deliberately, consciously, carefully avoid such grooves, we will easily slip back into them. They’re more familiar to us, they’re easier to move on, and we can go on auto-pilot and still get to where we want to go. To get out of this rut requires us to move way outside our comfort zone—and if the ruts are deep enough, to forge a new path far away from the old. The new path will be risky, even dangerous, full of the unknown. And it will take time at first, much time. But if habits are to be broken, one must count the cost realistically instead of simply bucking up his own volition as though it could stand on its own two feet.

I do think there is a place in our lives for grappling with such things. The changing of the year is still a valuable time for reflection and meditation, for wrestling with the demon within, for taking stock of our successes and failures in the previous year, and for dreaming of new hopes and heights in the next. There is a place for all this, a very serious place. But it’s not what should occupy us the most at this time of year. And it’s not what should occupy us the most at other times, either.

The community of believers, created because of and by means of the death and resurrection of Jesus, was one that recognized the value of introspection and declaration. Or, to roll both of these into one word, confession. They recognized that all we can confess about ourselves is our weakness and sin, and all we can confess about Christ is his goodness and glory. This dual confession, however, was not practiced only once a year. And it didn’t depend on one pulling himself up by his own bootstraps. No rugged individualism here, which leaves more broken promises and injured relationships in its wake than anything else. The early church did not know of Lone Ranger Christians. Even a sanctified stallion like Paul needed to be surrounded by friends—people who knew him well and still accepted him with his hard-hitting, no-nonsense, take-no-prisoners approach to life.

These Christians of old gathered together weekly to celebrate the Lord’s supper. Theirs was a weekly confession, in the community of believers, enabled by the Spirit of God. It was a time of self-reflection, but it didn’t stop there. That self-reflection was meant to be a stepping stone for Christ-exaltation. Narcissism’s goal is arrived at the end of one’s nose; the adventure of Christianity only begins there.

There is another layer to Christianity’s new week’s adorations. It is the recognition that we as human beings fail. Or to parse this out: We have failed, we fail now, and we will continue to fail. Without in the slightest way trying to justify our failures, it’s important for us to know that as long as we live on this earth in this body we will never be all that we can be. But if little by little, day by day, week by week, we can spend more time focusing on Christ than on ourselves, those failures will simultaneously begin to shrink and yet, paradoxically, seem to grow. For the godly person, the one who knows what it means to make the double confession on a regular basis, is the one who knows how frail he is, how undeserving he is of God’s love and forgiveness, how miserable he would be without Christ. He is acutely aware of his own sinfulness because he is acutely aware of Christ’s holiness. But if we are genuinely Christian in our viewpoint, we will not get self-absorbed with our own sin even though our consciousness of it is always there. Narcissistic resolutions are the old path with its ruts. We dare not stop at self-reformation, thinking that that can actually be accomplished, nor even thinking that that is a goal worthy of all our attention.

So, this year, I’m making one new year’s resolution—viz., not to make any new year’s resolutions. It’s not just that they don’t work; the focus is all wrong. Even if I had a 100% success rate in New Year’s resolutions, it would be all wrong because the goals would be short-sighted and the means would be self-glorifying. No more New Year’s resolutions for me. No, what I want is to know Christ, to love Christ, to obey Christ, to glorify Christ beyond what I had ever dreamt of before. But this is not my new year’s resolution that will fail in a couple of weeks, not to be reviewed or reflected on till next December 31; this is my weekly confession, even daily and hourly confession, that though constantly tainted with failure will nevertheless be the objective that does not go away, that does not wait for twelve months before I decide that it was just a pipedream, causing me to pick on something more ‘practical’ next year. No, this is what I want now, today, every day. And when I fail now, today, and every day, I will confess who I am and confess who Christ is, and he will pick me up and enable me to follow him again. And I will know that my new day’s, new hour’s, new week’s resolution is coming to fruition in my life if I have a genuine, growing love for fellow believers, an increasing concern for their greatest good, and a deeper sense that others are more important than I am. I’ve got a long, long way to go—but at least at the end of the tunnel is not a new and improved me, but Christ himself.

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