New Year, New Mom: Two Truths & a Lie About New Year’s Resolutions
In early January 2019, I used a permanent marker to write the name of every book I wanted to read with our kids. We stuck it on a wall in our mudroom with washi tape, smoothing it down and brushing off the water spots and crumbs that transferred from the table. The plan was to read them one-by-one and cross them off as we went along. We had the whole year, and reading aloud was going to be a new priority. The fact that we hadn’t been reading aloud consistently didn’t seem like a huge barrier. New year, new mom!
Within a day or two, the washi tape was coming loose. I retaped the corners and happily checked off our very first book. See, I’m doing a new thing this year!
A couple of weeks later, it fell to the ground where a younger sibling got a hold of the paper and tore off the corner. No matter—we repaired the list and stuck it back up. But the third time it fell, I can’t remember the details because it ended up in the trash. Enough time had passed and those books weren’t getting crossed off fast enough. New year, same mom.
Truth: We need to change.
Most of us see ways we fall short and know we could do a better job loving our husbands, children, co-workers, and neighbors. This extends beyond relationships into our own health and habits, too. We long to take better care of our bodies, minds, and souls. We want to do a new thing, be a new mom, and live like a new woman. We long for newness because we feel the weight of sin and see (however dimly) the chasm between our lives in this fallen world and God’s holiness.[1] The cultural tradition of New Year’s Resolutions and desire for “new year, new you” is a shadow of our true need for change.
What type of change do we really need? First, the Bible tells us that we need to be born again and have our dead heart of stone turned into a living heart of flesh.[2] That means we don’t just need a few good habits, we need a completely new heart and life. The only way to experience this total transformation is by grace, through faith in Jesus.[3] Second, we need the progressive change that comes from following and looking intently at Christ.[4] Instead of doing things God hates that result from our sin, we should do more and more things that God loves. This is called “walk[ing] by the Spirit” (Gal 5:16). So yes—in this new year, we should want to change and live more like Jesus in every way!
Truth: Change requires us to do things differently.
How are we going to change? Will we magically wake up on New Year’s morning with new habits? Of course not! Even our culture knows this. Resolutions require scaffolding while we make changes. If we resolve to take better care of our health, we have to find a way to fit exercise and healthy food prep into our daily routine. If we want to read more books aloud to our kids or spend more time with our friends, at some level, we get that this will require us to live differently than we did before. The cultural pull toward SMART goals, task management apps, life hacks, and exercise partners is strong because old habits are hard to break and new ones are even harder to form.
As a mom, it’s a great thing when New Year’s Resolutions help us make changes in step with the Spirit. To read the Bible more consistently and thoughtfully, it’s helpful to look on Pinterest, print off a Bible reading plan, put together a basket of all your supplies, and find a consistent time of day to meet with God. Throughout Christian history, believers have engaged in spiritual disciplines and other liturgical habits to scaffold spiritual change and growth. New Year’s Resolutions remind us that when it comes to living like we really want to deep down, we ought to do something different than we’ve done before. Even the Puritan theologian Jonathan Edwards turned to resolutions as a means of undergirding spiritual changes in his everyday life.
Lie: Resolutions can make us new.
But at a point, the cultural idea of resolutions deviates from the Christian view of renewal. It’s more than just seeing our need to be a better wife, mom, friend, worker, homemaker, etc. It’s more than gritting our teeth and pushing a little harder, getting a better organization strategy, or even tracking our goals with a friend. We can perhaps lose a bit of weight, read a few more books to our kids, and possibly even develop healthier screen time habits, but we can’t renew our own hearts and produce Christlikeness.
If this is the deep longing of your heart—the longing that disguises itself under the big wall list of 2019 read alouds—then consider this: turn wholly to the God who makes all things new.[5] God doesn’t want to just give us a list of things to do that we can tape to the wall and throw in the trash when we fall short, he wants to permanently mark our hearts and seal us with his Spirit.[6] He wants us to take all our desired changes, sins, frustrations, and longings to him and depend on him for help and strength.[7]
New year, new you is possible. Resurrected from the dead, new you is possible.[8] But one resolution is truly required—that you would turn from sin and resolve to follow Christ in faith, all the days of your life.
[1] Romans 1:20
[2] John 3:3; 1 Peter 2:23; Ezekiel 36:26
[3] Ephesians 2:8–9
[4] 2 Corinthians 3:18
[5] Isaiah 43:19; Revelation 21:5
[6] Ephesians 1:13
[7] Psalm 18:1–2
[8] 1 John 3:2; Philippians 3:21
