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As men, we like to fix things. Got a stopped up drain? Get the plunger and go to work. Got a fence with a post fallen? Get the shovel and concrete and go at it. Got an internet connection issue? Put on your best tech hat and solve the problem.
The good results from such resolve keep us on the same path when it comes to fixing ourselves. Get in there and go to work. Get it done. Solve the problem. This is the drive behind so many of the resolutions and goals we think about with a new year. We know we are not the men we should be, so let’s get to work and fix it. But the results are far more unpredictable. In some cases, they are a complete failure. Often we have to scrape bottom in some tragic way before coming to a startling revelation:
At our core, we cannot fix ourselves.
This may seem like a cause for despair, but it really is a relief. Our souls are too complex and too unexplored to yield to a list of resolutions, promises, and vows. Just imagine trying to operate on yourself to remove a cancer. That’s a much more fitting analogy as to what we are up against.
So for all of you who are tired of trying to fix yourself, I want to offer a very strange New Year’s resolution. It’s so strange that I have never heard anyone use it before. I’ve never seen it in print before. But it’s one I want for myself in 2019:
Walk each day as a treasured son of God.
Yep, that’s it. No resolves about exercise, diet, or work. No promises about marriage, family, or church. No new vows about how to spend money or time. This resolution is not about fixing ourselves. It’s about allowing God to fix us — to remake and remold us through the limitless expanses of His love.
When Jesus walked this earth, this is what He felt. This is how He lived — as the treasured Son of God. And His life became a seismic quake that continues to shake history centuries later. But He came to make men into His image. He wants us to walk as He did. What would happen if increasing numbers of men walked as treasured sons of God? What would happen if such a movement spread through cultures and across continents? I think it would shake history again. It would be the healing of men.
And when the healing of men starts, the healing of the rest of the world can begin.
Here’s my challenge to you. Take up the resolution to walk as a treasured son of God in 2019. Turn it into prayer each day. And then let God guide you into this reality. It will become the greatest adventure you have ever taken.
And perhaps the greatest year of your life.
Bill
PS. For any last minute year-end giving, we could sure use the help as we seek to expand the ministry in 2019. $20,000 is our goal, and it’s all for the healing of men. Click here to donate. And thank you!
