Let's Do This Thing

So another year ends.A new one begins.

And with the regularity of the movement of time, resolutions are written and promises are made. Gym memberships are opened. Diet books are purchased. Commitments to be kinder, or more studious, or harder working, or earlier awaking are sworn.

The annual rite of passage- out with the old year and it's mistakes. In with the new year and all it's glittering possibilities.

Though inevitably the glitter seems to fade as the hard work of getting up with the blaring of the alarm or the unappetizing prospect of dragging our work-weary body to the gym stares us in the face.

Resolutions don't work. There, I said it. I admit it.  Hello, my name is Susan and I am chronic resolution breaker and abandoner.

So this is my year of no resolution. Instead I am going to keep myself coming home to this motto, "Let's do this thing."

Now let me explain. Because for me, a Do Addict, the last thing I need is more pressure to DO. It isn't really that I need to do more at all.

Because in all my doing this is what I have learned:

God's Plan + My Effort = Worn Out Susan

Instead, by "Let's Do This Thing" what I really want is:

  God's Plan + My OBEDIENCE = His Glory

For years I have paralyzed my efforts with wondering, in the midst of all that doing, what God's plan for my life was. Had I missed it? Was I living up to it? Had I failed to do what He had called me to do? (I told you I was a Do Addict)

Now is different. Maybe it is the world around me. Maybe it is my age. Or maybe it is the focusing into clarity of the message in Scripture that I have been reading all my life. For I know now, at a very deep level, that I need to stop focusing on myself and what I am doing. I need instead to just obey what He has already told me to do.

There is a scene in one of my favorite movies, Gettysburg, where JEB Stuart comes riding in, late for the battle to meet the rather controlled wrath of Robert E. Lee. As Stuart tries to apologize and even resign in his vain glory of focusing on himself, Lee yells at him, "There is no time!" And that is how I feel about NOW. There is no time for Believers to complain or to protest or to feel frightened. There is no time for trepidation.

There is no time for own efforts. There is ONLY time for obedience.

Do you want to obey the Lord? Then love your enemy and bless him.

Do you want to obey the Lord? Then be faithful to your family and serve them daily.

Do you want to obey the Lord? Then be grateful for what you have. And be thankful for what others have, when they have more than you. And be generous to others, when they have less than you.

Do you want to obey the Lord? Then feed the hungry, and cloth the naked, and visit those in prison.

Do you want to obey the Lord? Then when someone takes your coat, offer them your shirt too.

Do you want to obey the Lord? Then pick up you cross daily and follow Him.

Jesus doesn't need us to accomplish great things for Him. He needs us to act like Him, to love like Him, to serve like Him, and to lay down our lives like Him.

THAT is my resolution this year. My motto. My desire. Do you want to join me? Then onward Christian soldiers. Let's roll. Let's. Do. This. Thing.