Old Wisdom for New (Year’s) Resolutions

Nothing like a (fashionably) late New Year's Resolutions article!

At this point we've been in the new year for almost a week. If you're someone who sets goals for the new year, they've already been set. Whether you're thriving in your resolution(s) or already feeling discouraged, I hope this post is of some use in thinking about the point of resolutions and how, perhaps, to order them towards God's purpose for our lives.

The Modern Currency: Productivity & Quantity

The modern world encourages us to record our lives in statistics. It feels normal to us, but documenting one's life in numbers is a recent phenomenon when contrasted with life before the 21st century. What we know of our ancestors comes mostly in the form of storytelling: diaries, immigration files, newspapers, autobiographies, family trees. What was said of them -- if anything at all -- illumined their person, or character, or place, or history. One would be hard pressed to discover an ancestor's step count or daily caloric intake.

Today's records usually have a different character. We tend to record our activities in a way more befitting an excel sheet than a notebook. We're encouraged to track data concerning our health, our leisure, our sleep, our fitness, our production, our schedule, our screen-time. In other words, today's world encourages us to view persons largely as collections of numbers by which one might measure their success in various activities. Jane Smith is successful because she sleeps X hours a day, reads Y pages per week, and runs Z miles per month.

Consider how this perception of man's purpose shapes our goals. When setting a New Year's Resolution, my default is to think of quantifiable benchmarks: read more, eat less, run farther. Harder, better, faster, stronger. And when we struggle to pick a new goal, our inboxes are there to help us. In the week leading up to New Year's Day, the average American's email inbox probably looks something like this: Your fitness watch prompts you to set a step goal. Your GoodReads account prompts you to set a 2022 book goal. Your calorie app prompts you to set a weight goal. Your Smart Phone prompts you to set a screen-time goal. Your Bible reading plan prompts you to set a chapters-per-day goal. Your diet prompts you to set a carbs-protein ratio goal. Your school prompts you to set a GPA goal. Your electricity provider prompts you to set an energy-savings goal. Your budgeting app prompts you to set a savings goal, a discretionary goal, an emergency goal. A minimalism documentary prompts you to set a number-of-possessions goal. Your sleep app prompts you to set a nightly rest goal.

The point of this opening section is not fully to dissuade us from using such metrics. I want to maintain they have value in a particular way. But they lack a compelling vision of what people are for. Are we meant simply to become more productive and efficient? Is optimization the purpose of man? The Bible says no. Scripture offers another way.

Man's Telos

Telos is a word worth recovering in Christian discipleship. It means "ultimate end", or "ultimate purpose". It is the single end to which all things are ordered. When the Westminster Catechism asks, "What is the chief end of man?", they mean to ask, "What is the telos of man?" The modern world is adept at setting and achieving goals. But achievement fails to satisfy when aimed at nothing beyond itself.

The apostle Peter illumines a higher calling in 2 Peter 1:3-8:

“His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness...For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Peter identifies godliness as man's purpose. Godliness is being like God and with God, as a gift from God. Peter also unveils what the path to godliness consists of: faith begets virtue, which in turn unfolds itself in the manifold virtues of self-control, steadfastness, brotherly affection, and love. Christian life, then, is growing up in the character of Christ, displaying more and more His virtues of godliness. Thus, Paul concurs that Scripture’s aim is to equip us to become "full-grown men and women in the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Eph. 4:13). The Christian walk is one of growing up in the character of Christ.

The Goal Behind the Goal

When setting a New Year's Resolution, then, consider how you might deliberately aim to grow in a specific Christian virtue this year, aimed at maturity in Christ. The Bible speaks of virtue in various times and in various ways, but most succinctly in the fruit of the Spirit of Galatians 5:22-23:

"But the fruit of the Spirit is:

• love

• joy

• peace

• patience

• kindness

• goodness

• faithfulness

• gentleness

• & self-control"

The Spirit of Christ promises to nurture these virtues in our hearts, and Scripture instructs us to deliberately cultivate them with the Spirit's help (Gal. 3:16). This year, might you identify a Christian virtue to strive after with the Spirit's help? If you are easily frustrated with your spouse or children, pray and strive for patience in 2022. If you are habitually cynical, designate "joy" as your word of the year and ask the Spirit to shape your affections accordingly. In any case, strive for human qualities over mere production. Metrics serve us in measuring progress; but the goal itself ought to be rooted in our God-given telos: likeness to God, in which He made us and now renews us (Gen. 1:27; Eph. 4:24).

If you've already picked a resolution (as is likely, since it's January 6), then consider the goal behind the goal: exercise and eating goals are both forms of self-control. Giving and hospitality are forms of love, peace, and kindness. By focusing on virtue over metrics, you'll find that resolutions are more rewarding, more challenging, and more gracious towards you.

Two Practical Notes

I'll close with two practical benefits of setting virtue-goals rather than production-goals.

First, I believe that virtue-goals are more sustainable by their very nature than are production-goals. When we set a numerical goal – say, reading 12 books this year – then we feel it wise to "cut our losses" when April comes around and we've only read 2. Falling behind a numerical goal encourages...well, discouragement! Cutting losses is a wise financial move, but it makes for a poor approach in the cultivation of persons. In contrast, growing in virtue and godliness is a lifelong endeavor. It's a joyful endeavor. When your motivation isn't attached to a measurable progress chart, discouragement wanes and fruitfulness blossoms.

Second, you'll notice that virtue goals are both more challenging and less punishing than production goals. In Why They Can't Write, author John Warner comments that “Current common approaches for teaching writing are simultaneously too punishing and not nearly challenging enough.” This sounds paradoxical, but it's a rather important distinction that reverberates well beyond just the discipline of writing. He means that in the modern, standardized classroom students are insufficiently challenged to actually grow as writers, yet strictly punished for not meeting exacting standards in their work. The joy of growth and personal style are removed from the process of writing, replaced by meticulously measured metrics and standards of success. Such is the case in any discipline. We need to be more challenged to change into Christlikeness – fancy folk call this "sanctification" – while receiving the non-punishing patience of God in the process – which the fancy and simple alike call "grace".