It’s February now, which means that more than 80 percent of people who made New Year’s resolutions have either failed to maintain them or abandoned them altogether. And even if you’re not someone who tries to make an official resolution, many people still look with hope on the new year, feeling energized by a fresh calendar that presents fresh opportunities.
The problem for so many, however, is when that initial enthusiasm wears off – when you’re forced to wake up on a cold February morning to go to the gym or when somebody brings you donuts from your favorite shop – your aspirations for a healthier lifestyle seem to fade with every passing temptation. Maybe illness gets in the way and your aspiration for perfect weekend attendance at church has gone by the wayside, or you’ve had to deplete your new savings plan already because of unexpected expenses. Even those without resolutions have perhaps found that their desire for this year to be different seems like a silly ambition already.
The thing that unites all of these is that enthusiasm alone doesn’t yield positive results. If wishing for change was all it took, we would all be changed already. Those few people still going with their 2024 goals – less than 20 percent – how do they do it? How do they keep going?
At this point in the book of Numbers, Israel has made a habit of turning away from God. And in chapter 25, they continue that trend: they start worshiping the Gods of the local people and follow them instead. Instead of allowing the people to lose their identity as the people of God and throw the mission to the promised land completely into chaos, God does what God has been doing since Genesis 1: making order out of chaos. The following chapters of Numbers show God counting, organizing and creating structures to help accomplish the mission. People were allocated land based on the size of their groups, the clans were united according to their ancestors and therefore given clear identity, and the inheritance structures were made to include women and siblings, not just firstborn sons (yes, the book of Numbers was progressive).
As we seek to be the people God made us to be, don’t consider it a failure of God if our problems are not magically fixed. Instead, create lasting structures around the changes you would like to see, following this example of God in the Bible.
The last piece: involve God in this process. If something is important to us, it is also important to God, but we can also listen for discernment as we seek to align ourselves with God’s kingdom. Prayerfully, diligently, we can make changes in ourselves and our world.
Questions for reflection:
- What changes would you like to see in your life?
- What structures do you have in place to make that happen?
- How might involving God in this process change your attitude toward the changes you’d like to make?