This Time Next YearSample

If you’ve survived a New Year’s Eve party or chatted with someone around the New Year, you probably discussed a New Year’s resolution or two. There’s a good chance you even made one of your own. People strive for things like losing weight, eating healthy, reading more books, saving money or less screen time.

Here’s a statistic for you. Let’s say you found 100 people who committed to a resolution for the New Year. Within just a few months, only EIGHT of those 100 people will have stuck with it. That’s pretty dang low. This begs the question - why is it so hard to stick to a resolution?

Change is hard. Change is especially hard if we’re going it alone. And it’s almost impossible if we stay chained to our mistakes. Truth?  We’ll never do anything perfectly. Even Paul, who some might describe as a super Christian, struggled with making changes.  As hard as he tried to do better, sometimes he did even worse. Like all of us, sometimes he landed in the 8% of people who succeed at change.  But mostly, he found himself sitting in the 92%, just like us. And even in those failing moments, Paul never forgot how loved and cared for he was by Jesus! What can help you remember that God is ‘for’ you, rooting for your success and loving you when you miss the mark?