Instead of a New Year’s resolution….Change lanes!

January, our word for the first month of the year, comes from the name of the mythical god Janus, who looked both into the past and into the future. What an appropriate naming! As the 2008 year ends, we pause, look back at who we have become, at what has happened in our hearts, in our world. We marvel at the marvelous moments and weep at the ones that wear at our soul. Then we look forward to 2009, at what is yet to be.


For some of us, we look ahead to more wonder, to others, more weeping. But wherever we stand, most of us resolve to do something a bit differently as the new year breaks forth. Like me, I imagine you have some goals, hopes, and dreams for the year ahead.


As is often the case, we start the new year with bold resolutions, aimed at helping us reach new goals. You know what I mean, don’t you? It’s the list of what I hope to be, do, experience, etc. Just as a new spice adds a quirky twist to a familiar recipe, so, too, we hope our resolutions will add newness to the familiar.


However, I’d like to propose that we not make resolutions this year. Instead, let’s change lanes to a new way of thinking! Consider, instead, making an Askesis, a rule for living. I don’t know about yours but my resolutions start out oh-so-lofty, but like leaky helium balloons, their height quickly plummets; momentum is lost.


A rule for living, an Askesis, looks broader than most January 1 resolutions. It takes in all of our heart, all of our life. A rule for living is a travel plan for our heart. Think of it as you would the journey process, like planning a trip.


First, you have in mind where you want to go. Then you begin to ponder the way to get there. And, of course, you have to decide what to take with you for the journey. Lastly, if you’re like me, you ask others who have been where you’re going.


The ancient church mothers and fathers realized that just desiring God wasn’t always enough, anymore than wishing you could go to the beach next summer is enough to get you there. Both require the discipline to plan to move towards that place. Thomas a Kempis reminds us that we each journey differently towards Christ…but all we, who follow hard after Jesus, long to arrive at the end of our days being more like Him. The journey into eternity begins now. So for each of us, we ponder where we want to go and how to get there.


What is this Askesis, you might ask? (Remember, I just graduated from seminary, so I’m getting my money’s worth from what I learned from my marvelous professors Demarest and Baker!) An Askesis is the plan for engaging in spiritual disciplines that lead us forward into a deeper walk with Christ. Just as our bodies need a variety of actions to stretch and grow our muscles, our souls need a variety of disciplines to stretch and grow our life with Christ.


The spiritual disciplines go beyond the realm of our vital daily quiet times, where we gather daily manna from the Word written and the Word Himself. They are the place we set ourselves into the path with the Holy Spirit, intending His work and ours to be an intimate dance towards holiness. The disciplines include spiritual places that create metamorphosis within us, so we become more and more like Jesus. Spiritual disciplines come in all shapes and sizes. Solitude. Silence. Scripture memory. Lectio divina. Fasting. Celebrating. Journaling. Dialoguing with the Holy Trinity. Worship. Study. Sabbath rest. Spiritual Direction. Examen. Service. Simplicity. Contemplation. A smorgasbord of types of prayer. Fellowship. Stewardship of time, body, resources, mind, soul, finances, relationships.


Dallas Willard challenges, in The Great Omission, “There is an obvious Great Disparity between, on the one hand, the hope for life expressed in Jesus—found real in the Bible and in many shining examples from among his followers—and, on the other hand, the actual day-to-day behavior, inner life and social presence of most of those who now profess adherence to him.” If we are to be disciples of Christ, Willard notes, we are to be a people “who don’t just profess certain views as their own but apply their growing understanding of life in the Kingdom of the Heavens to every aspect of their life on earth.”


That’s easier said than done, isn’t it? I start out boldly ready then find myself easily sidetracked or detoured. Perhaps an Askesis will keep my heart headed more heartily on the journey with Jesus.


In her book Sacred Rhythms: Arranging our Lives for Spiritual Transformation, Ruth Haley Barton encourages us to ask this question: “How do I want to live so I can be who I want to be?” Our answer, she says, becomes the structure for developing our rule of life that leads us in our journey of spiritual transformation,


So how does one begin to figure out one’s Askesis, a rule for living with and for Jesus? Like John the beloved disciple, lean into Jesus. Hear His heartbeat. Like Mary, sit unhurried at His feet. Dialogue with Him of His longings for you. Wrestle, Jacob-ish, with the places you want blessings at the cost of limping. Consider your own hopes, wobbles, gifts, and longings as one who wants to be David-like: a person after God’s own heart.


What do you think God’s longings for your heart this upcoming year are? What do you think is His ultimate desire for you? Let’s find a quiet place this day to stop amidst the newness of the year and hear His voice and His hopes for our hearts. Then, like a traveler planning an upcoming adventure, let’s begin to ponder daily, weekly, quarterly and yearly encounters with the Living God as we gather the disciplines into the lanes of change in our lives for 2009.

Barton, Ruth Haley. Sacred Rhythms: Arranging Our Lives for Spiritual Transformation. Downers Grove, IVP Books, 2006.

Willard, Dallas. The Great Omission. San Francisco, HarperSanFransisco, 2006.