Why I am Not Making a New Year's Resolution.

It is the first week in January and I do not have a New Year's resolution yet.

In fact, I won't have one.

Because I'm not making one. Why? Honestly, it would be more hurtful than helpful for several reasons. 

As most of you know, I have struggled with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder for the majority of my life (read my blog on this here) and one of the ways it manifests for me is through list-making. I want to know what "needs" to be done, what I "have to" do, and exactly which steps to take to make sure that everything will go okay. If things don't go as I have written them out to go, then who knows what terrible, horrific thing may happen (or so my brain thinks...). While this is very much a part of my mental disorder of OCD, it is also a sinful rut I struggle to walk through each day. For me, resolutions give me a brief release from the anxiety but in the end add more anxiety, worry, and guilt to my already chaotic mind. 

I've made resolutions in the past. Probably every year I can remember in fact. Like almost everyone who makes them, I start off great - so full of confidence and ambition and zeal - then crash and burn. The burn is terrible, and it's a slow ember which takes a long time to completely fade away. Making a resolution, especially when I write it down or tell others about it, and then failing to keep it seems to fuel the lies of failure, worthless, and stupid I battle against already. I don't know about you, but I don't really care to open myself up to more lies and condemnation than that which already floods my heart and mind. If I I know walking down a resolution-making process is most likely going to end in pain, it's not something that really beckons me to continue down that road. 

The biggest reason that I am making a conscious effort to not make a New Year's resolution this year though, is because of Jesus. No, Jesus does not say we are not to make resolutions. There is not a place in scripture that says partaking in this cultural tradition fuels the wrath of God. Not even close. I do know however, that in my attempts to make and keep resolutions in the past I have neglected the incredibly massive fact that I cannot change myself. No matter how many post-it notes I put up with positive affirmations around my house, no matter how many friends I have holding me accountable with scheduled check-in phone calls, will power only lasts so long. I can't change myself. I just can't.

But praise the Lord that my Savior is the one who changes hearts, redeems lives, and molds weary, sinful minds into his image and likeness one day at a time. 

So this year, I want to start the year face down. Not because I have crashed my resolutions already by week one, but because I simply cannot start anything apart from falling at the feet of my Lord and Savior. I have tried year after year to change bad habits, start good habits, and hide failures on my own strength, and frankly, it has slowly killed me. I don't want to count on my spastic bouts of will power, but on the One who spoke the stars into existence. I don't want to make a list of all of the bad things about my character and next to them write what I want to be by 2015, like some job description I will never be qualified for.

I want to be transformed by Jesus.

I want to know my Lord better. Not by my great quiet time practices, or my church attendance, or my monthly giving amount. I want to know Him better through getting to know Him, just as I would a dear friend.

I want to actually, functionally, radically believe the Gospel. Not just being able to check a box that says "Christian", but believing so deeply that Jesus died for my sins and rose for my salvation that it transforms absolutely every single inch of my heart and mind and life. And I don't want to keep that knowledge inside any longer.

All of this is great, but I can't do any of it. Only God can. And that takes so much pressure off of me to preform a certain way, to change a certain amount, and to live a certain lifestyle.

I just to get to be me. Ashley Titus. Running after my sweet Jesus by the strength of his mercy on legs which were once bound and shackled and now are redeemed and renewed.

Happy 2014

Until next post,
Sola Dei Gloria