HoHum and WBTU:
It’s time to make those New Year’s Resolutions- often things like losing weight or giving up smoking, spending more time with family or starting a new project. Unfortunately, by the end of January, 40 percent of people who make New Year’s Resolutions break them. By Valentine’s Day, that number jumps to 75 percent. At the beginning of a new year, many of us try to imagine all the things we’d like to be different about our lives, and we try to tackle them all at once. Some people might even try to get organized and make lists capturing their goals and action plans. Usually, we spend more time making those lists than we actually spend doing them.
Need a different approach. Need to ask, “What is the one thing I want to be different in my life next year?” Rather than focusing on many things, need to focus on one thing. Since we trust God’s wisdom and direction, we need to ask and seek God’s help in finding that one thing.
What is the point of focusing on 10 things and not making progress in any of them? Focus on just one thing in the new year and change that one thing entirely, fully, completely- then over the course of a decade, our life will look dramatically different. A decade of 10 just one things. Ten changes. 10 disciplines. Ten steps closer to who God wants us to be.
Most of us have good intentions about following through on our resolutions. Good intentions fail to change us or improve our lives without action. It’s normal to make resolutions, have good intentions to keep them, maybe even keep them for a while, but ultimately let them slip away. Even focusing on one, how can we follow through? “Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.” Philippians 2:12, 13, NIV.
Forget it, gave up on making a resolution because always break them. ““Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.” Isaiah 43:18, 19.
Maybe God wants to do a new thing for us and through us.
Thesis: 4 questions to help provide clarity and discernment about our “Just one thing” this new year
For instances:
1. What one thing do we desire from God?
If God were to offer us, “I’ll do any one thing that you ask,” what would we ask for? Solomon had this happen to him- asked for wisdom. Solomon had a good example in David his father.
David narrowed his focus here- “One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.” Psalms 27:4, NIV. The Bible describes David as a man after God’s own heart, and this verse goes a long way in revealing why. Whether in good times or bad times, David knew the thing he needed most: to feel God’s presence through worship
What is the one thing that we desire from God?
Maybe someone close to us is not a Christian, and the one thing we want is for God to use us in bringing this person into a saving relationship with Christ. Maybe we are struggling with an addition or some other sin, and it’s keeping us from deepening our relationship with God. Or perhaps when we look at our marriage, we know it’s not where God wants it to be. Might be tempted to ask God to fix the other person in that relationship. Instead, consider praying, “Lord, please change my heart. Please make me the person you want me to be. As much as it depends on me, please give me the grace to live peacefully with my spouse. Please heal our marriage.”
Maybe it’s time to slow down and honor the promise we’ve been making- and breaking- to our family for years. Time fast forwards as our kids grow up, our spouse ages, our friends come and go. And we’re missing it- lost in the commute, the office, the business trips, the household chores, the bills, the obligations, and all the rest that life seems to demand. Is this really how we want to live our life? Is this really how God wants us to live?
Maybe not married and it feels like everyone around us is. We are happy for them but at the same time it’s making us feel so alone. May even really desire somebody to love in that way, but it’s just not working our right now. Maybe start praying, “Father, please be enough for me. Please help me to be satisfied with you and with whatever you bring my way.”
2. What one thing do we lack?
What one thing in our relationship with God do we lack? A rich young guy sought out Jesus for help in that one area. Jesus said to him, “You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.’” “Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.” Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.” Mark 10:19-22, NIV. Several things here
It’s stated that Jesus loved this guy. Jesus made sure to frame his answer with love
Jesus offered him an opportunity to follow him. Jesus offered this to only a few.
Jesus boiled the whole problem down to just one thing the young man lacked.
For many, it is just one thing standing in our way of following Jesus. For this rich young ruler, it was material possessions. He just couldn’t let go of this, even when God specifically showed him the one thing he lacked. He was unwilling to do the one thing that would have benefited him the most, and he went away sad.
Many know the one thing they lack. Has there been an issue that God keeps putting on our hearts again and again? Maybe we’ve fought it or just ignored it, and we have never addressed it. It’s time. What is Jesus saying to us about the one thing we lack?
Maybe spending time in God’s Word. Used to do that but life happened.
Maybe connecting with people from church. Maybe want to but just haven’t taken any steps. Maybe we are resisting because we are shy or feel inadequate or we just don’t know where to start. But deep down, we know: that one thing could be the catalyst that helps us finally take off spiritually- have others spur us on and encourage us in our walk with Christ, accountability
Maybe it is giving to the church- tithing. God’s asking “Are you going to trust me?”
3. What one thing do we need to let go?
Many people hold onto just about everything- busyness, money, possessions, grudges. In Philippians 3:7-11, apostle Paul shares about how much he desires to know more of Christ. Then he explains what’s necessary for this to take place: “Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:13, 14, NIV.
Paul’s one thing was committing to forget about the past, to forge ahead into the future. He releases the past and moves forward, no matter the consequences.
How was Paul’s past hindering him from knowing Christ? Unsure but we do know some things that happened in his past. He witnessed a crowd stoning Stephen, the first Christian martyr. Maybe he wanted to put that behind him. When he was known as Saul, Paul relished the opportunity to chase down Christians, persecute them, imprison them, and even execute them. Probably wanted to forget those wrongs. Or maybe it was the physical and psychological pain he himself had endured as he was persecuted for his faith in Christ. Hard to forgive and making him bitter. Moving forward in this way takes discipline and focus.
If we are not moving forward, maybe it’s because we are holding onto something from the past. It’s time to let go. Someone hurt us. We are holding onto anger and bitterness, a refusal to forgive. God wants us to do something new. We can’t dwell in the past; we have to forget what’s behind and press on. I’m convinced that one of the biggest challenges today is the people simply won’t let go of the past. Someone hurt us in the past, so we continue to punish them for what they did- only really punishing ourselves.
Maybe we feel let down by ourselves. Maybe we failed at something, and now we believe we are failures because we messed up. It’s time to confess it, ask for forgiveness (from God and anyone affected) and let it go. Move forward from this.
4. What one promise can we cling to?
Maybe we feel like we are where we need to be but nothing has really happened yet. We find ourselves constantly asking, “Where are you, God?” David knew this feeling quite well. In the OT, David was a young man when Samuel anointed him as Israel’s next king. Samuel traveled to Bethlehem and looked over each of Jesse’s sons, as God had told him. None of the sons there were the one so called for the last one, David, who was tending the sheep. When David came, Samuel, lead by God, anointed David. God had made the promise that David would be the next king over Israel. Just when he was anointed it seemed like he’d take one step forward and two steps back. David would see a victory, and Saul would come in right behind him, trying to run him down and destroy him. David had to get frustrated and discouraged.
We mustn’t lose the hope of a promise that God has given us. It may not look like we expect it to look (who expected the Messiah to be born in a manger?), or arrive when we want it to arrive (who knew Abraham and Sarah could have a child in their old age?), but God is always faithful to his word. “What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” Romans 8:31, 32, NIV.
Invitation-Went to the Ark Encounter (https://arkencounter.com/about/) my step father was baptized “In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also--not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience towards God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ,” 1 Peter 3:20, 21, NIV.
