New Year, New... Why?

The thought of blogging is interesting to me.  I don't (never have) consider myself a writer, though (like running) I absolutely love the idea of becoming one.  Which is really dumb, if you stop to think about it.  If I don't find particular joy in writing, why then would I want to become a writer?  If I don't find particular joy in running (trust me, no joy there), then why do I find running workouts and plan how I cool it would be for me to be ready to run a marathon by the end of 2014?  What is it about the human psyche and the beginning of a new year that tells us to forgo the things to which we have been clinging, and jump feet first into new things, often with lofty goals that have an overwhelmingly small success rate?

In the past, I have taken two different roads when it comes to the New Year:

Road #1: I am not making resolutions.  They are often unachievable, and most people give up on them before January 5th, so I'm going to eliminate the humiliation of going to the gym for 3 days, by not making the goals in the first place.

Road #2: I am making goals.  I am going to be that person who makes goals and sticks to them!

If you don't resonate with one of these, you likely understand both.  For me, I usually begin with Road #2, but invariably will find myself hurtling down Road #1 a few days later.

So for the love of everything good, why am I writing about this?  Mostly because I want to be one of those people who blogs.  Because I think people like that are awesome - I read blogs and love blogs and form relationships with blog authors who don't even know I exist.  More on that later.  But I realize that this constant quest and searching for the "more," the resolution, the desire of something deeper and meaningful and important, speaks directly into who we are as people created by a creator.

I am reminded of CS Lewis' line from Mere Christianity, "If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world."  Why do we seek to become better versions of ourselves?  Why do we spend our time pinning workouts and trying diets and making new years resolutions?  Because we are children of the King.  Whether we acknowledge it or not, we often recognize the empty space inside of ourselves.  The fear of the unknown, the fear of not fitting in  and feeling like we don't belong.

I hate to be a kill-joy, but the reason that we feel like we don't belong is because we don't belong.  We have a desire placed in our hearts - to do what God has placed us on the Earth to do.

Now maybe for you, this desire can be filled in a couch to 5k run for 2014.  I don't know the intricacies of the heart of God, so maybe that's the penultimate for you.  But maybe it isn't.  Maybe God desires for you to pursue after the things that He has placed in your heart for you to care about.  That's the crazy thing about God - is that your passions are His passions.  If you care about teaching, preaching, education, fitness, food, conservation, science, art, politics... I believe that God cares about those things.  

Ephesians 2:10 (check it) reminds us that we are created to do good works here on Earth.  Remember that small success rate of New Years resolutions I talked about earlier (50% of the population making resolutions and 88% of those people FAILING at them in the first two weeks)?  Here's the mind-blowingly awesome statistic for God: 100% of the time, He is sovereign.

Root your resolutions on the word of God.  I don't know if that will make me a better or more consistent blogger (my bets are on no), give me the superhuman ability to lose weight with only one or two trips to the gym a month (probably not), or snap my fingers and balance my budget (again...no).   But I do believe that when I pursue after the heart of God and what He has in mind for me, my focus and purpose become a bit clearer every day.

And who knows, maybe I can be the part of the 12% of the 50% that actually follow through for more than two weeks.  I'll let you know, come January 14th.