Every January, we\u2019re handed the same script.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lose weight.
Drink less.
Pray more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve already received an email asking, \u201cChuck, what do you resolve<\/em> to do beginning on January 1?\u201d And they\u2019ll gladly sell me their book on bettering myself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n New Year\u2019s resolutions are often built on sheer willpower, even mind over matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n YOU CAN DO THIS the headline reads, with 20 people on gym bicycles at 5:30am. But you\u2019re just trying to catch a few extra minutes of sleep at that time after your kid comes wandering in saying, \u201cMommy, is it morning yet?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n And the subtle message if you fail at resolving to be your best you? Shame on you for not trying harder. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n This can\u2019t be it, friends. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What if the deeper invitation of the new year isn\u2019t exhausting effort, but attunement?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not pushing through, but listening deeply?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Resolutions ask: What should <\/em>I do differently this year? And that\u2019s not a small shift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the Gospels, Jesus doesn\u2019t offer transformation-by-checklist. Rather, he offers a Beatitude vision of the kind of happy (read: flourishing and whole)<\/em>person you can become by taking the unlikeliest path: surrender, grief, humility, desire, mercy, integrity, shalom, and security. And throughout his public ministry, Jesus asks one sort of question, over and over\u2014a question so simple and so disarming that you might miss it while looking for to-do lists:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat do you want?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n No, it\u2019s a not a \u2018what do you want for Christmas\u2019 kind of question. It\u2019s asking: At your depths, what you most deeply long for? <\/p>\n\n\n\n And it\u2019s an invitation to begin anew, not in wearying willpower but soul-empowering grace. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The great early church saint Augustine once mused, \u201cThe desire for grace is the beginning of grace.\u201d I read it like this: Grace isn\u2019t passive. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n We too often juxtapose will and grace, as if the latter is passive. It\u2019s not. Augustine reminds us that the wide open field of grace reveals itself in-and-through our desires. After all, as he famously said elsewhere, \u201cOur hearts are restless until they find their rest in God.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n CS Lewis said something similar: longing is a signal<\/em>, a homing beacon<\/em>, an echo<\/em> of Eden. It\u2019s a reminder that your heart still pulses within, that beneath the mad and mundane of your everyday life is a hunger for goodness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Grace awakens in your heart as desire, as you tap into an underground current, one that never stops flowing even if you live unaware of it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What if tuning in<\/em> was the call of the new year? <\/p>\n\n\n\n This posture of longing doesn\u2019t just make theological sense, it makes physiological sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So much of our resolution-making assumes that our bodies are obstacles to overcome. If we could just outthink our anxiety, override our exhaustion, or push past our limits, then we\u2019d finally become the people we want to be. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhere there\u2019s a will there\u2019s a way,\u201d my Mom used to say. By late January or early February, however, we\u2019ve only lost momentum and found exhaustion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But our nervous systems don\u2019t change through force. And our longings don\u2019t awaken in the fight-or-flight hustle of chronic sympathetic nervous system activation. <\/p>\n\n\n\nFrom Resolutions to Longings<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Longings ask: What is stirring<\/em> within me?<\/p>\n\n\n\nGrace and Desire<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Working With<\/em> the Body, Not Against It<\/h3>\n\n\n\n