Why do we write New Years resolutions? It is because we try and fail. We try to lose weight, or read the Bible every day, or complete a project only to find that we put on a couple more pounds, miss our reading on Jan 11th, and don’t finish things. We believe it is our will and determination that makes the difference. Each year we fool ourselves into thinking we have more of those qualities on the first of the calendar year than at other times.

The greatest resolver I know of was Jonathan Edwards, who made his list in 1722-23. They were not for the New Year, but an expanding list of resolutions (eventually numbering around 70) that he added to for a period of months that detailed the principles and actions that would mark his life. There is no mention of how often he might do something (except a reminder to read these weekly), or for how long. There is no mention of fitness goals; in the 18th century it was sufficient to avoid dying.
Edwards begins:

“Being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God’s help, I do humbly entreat him by his grace to enable me to keep these Resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to his will, for Christ’s sake.”

He starts off on the correct footing. Edwards understood the battle between the flesh and the spirit, and did not trust that he could live a life worthy of his Lord apart from His help. His resolutions are anchored in faith. Of course there is work in faith (1 Thess. 1:3, 2 Thess. 1:11, James 2:26), but our faith is the basis for our actions.
His first is as follows:

“1. Resolved, that I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God’s glory, and my own good, profit and pleasure, in the whole of my duration, without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriads of ages hence. Resolved to do whatever I think to be my duty, and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. Resolved to do this, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many and how great soever.”

That sounds like a taller order than losing twenty pounds. You should read the rest; some of them are quite interesting, such as the following:

“10. Resolved, when I feel pain, to think of the pains of martyrdom, and of hell.”
“55. Resolved, to endeavor to my utmost to act as I can think I should do, if I had already seen the happiness of heaven, and hell torments.” July 8, 1723.

Many of the 70 are like this: focusing his attention away from the temporal world to the world to come. For Edwards, this was to see things as they are, not as they appear to our eyes. His passion was for the final glory of God, and he wanted to live his life in a way to increase his joy at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As I read them I realize that I need to keep seeking that things that are above, to walk by faith and not by sight, and to fix my hope completely on the revelation of our Lord Jesus. I can only do this through God’s power.

As far as specifics go, I resolve to blog more often, only one of many things I have determined to do at which I have failed in the last year.

Happy New Year to you all.

Update: It’s now available! Click here to order on Amazon, or go to the Costly Grace Media web site for more information.

Having said that, this project has been full of delays, but through it all I think you’ll be pleased with the results. The first manuscript was completed over a year ago, and the last year has been devoted to relentless editing and rewriting. I had a great deal of help, and learned many lessons. I’m quite used to speaking, but writing is not like speaking. My good friend Christine Walker, a content editor with McGraw Hill Publishing, had me rewrite a lot of it, and helped me become a better writer. I owe her a great debt for her patient assistance, and I have been blessed by her constant prayer for this project.

Right now, we’re working on cover design, and the last touches on the internal formatting. Then it’s off to Lightning Source, and on to Amazon. The book will be available in paperback and Kindle versions.

Watch here for news, or drop me a line if you want to be notified when it’s available. Thanks to all who have been waiting patiently for it.

I’ll start posting excerpts here so you can get a sneak peek soon.

I spend a lot of time thinking about the effects of our digital age on our minds, and especially on the spiritual life of the Christian. My primary ministry is with college students, and I see how important technology is to every moment of their lives. However, it’s not just they who are affected: I also breathe in the digital spirit of our age, and what I have been breathing in has changed me.

What I have noticed in my own life is that it is much harder for me to concentrate on just one thing without my mind wandering than it used to be. If I open my Bible to read and meditate for a while, another part of my brain informs me that it has been a while since I checked my email, or I remember that I need to send a text message to somebody about something. If I’m praying it’s even worse: a hundred possible interruptions come to mind when I am trying to seek the Lord.

Much of this cannot be laid at the feet of technology. I’ve always been highly distractible. As a child I was a daydreamer, and had difficulty staying on task, or remaining in my seat at school. We had no ADD diagnosis for me to hide behind back then, so I was left at the mercy of every teacher looking for an infraction of order in the classroom. Digital technology has not improved that for me. I can scan through a hundred blog articles in my RSS feed, but sitting down and thinking deeply about a verse of Scripture, or listening for the voice of God does not come easily.

Writing years before the digital age in his book, No Little People, Francis Schaeffer made the following observation:

“People today are afraid to be alone. This fear is a dominant mark of our society. Many now ceaselessly sit in the cinema or read novels about other people’s lives or watch dramas. Why? Simply to avoid having to face their own existence… No one seems to want (and no one can find) a place of quiet — because, when you are quiet, you have to face reality. But many in the present generation dare not do this because on their own basis reality leads them to meaninglessness; so they fill their lives with entertainment, even if it is only noise… The Christian is supposed to be very opposite: There is a place for proper entertainment, but we are not to be caught up in ceaseless motion which prevents us from ever being quiet. Rather we are to put everything second so we can be alive to the voice of God and allow it to speak to us and confront us.”

If only he had lived to see our generation, with its constant Facebook activity, Twitter postings, email, smart phones, and continual “connectedness” at all hours of the day!

So how do we quiet our souls before the Lord? How do we get the voices of the sirens of technology to still?

The technology is here to stay, so any thought of “disconnecting” will be fruitless for most of us. The Amish don’t want you in their community, and you don’t know how to do anything useful, like care for livestock or build a fence anyway. We have to find ways of retreating from our laptops and mobile phones to meet the Lord, if only for a while.

I find that taking walks helps, especially if there are few distractions like cars and people. For some reason, getting out into nature makes a difference, even if it’s the tiny acre of natural beauty at the little park at the end of my street. Lonely beaches, hiking trails, and (surprisingly) golf courses are good spots. But it’s not about the location.

What really makes the difference is being patient with your tendency toward mental self-distraction. In Psalm 131, David says that he has calmed and quieted his soul. For us, that will take time, and we will face a number of failures as we do so. If you take the time to quiet your soul before God, not kicking yourself every time another competing thought intrudes, but waiting patiently for the voices to subside, you will find that place you need to be in order to hear the voice of God. Cut yourself a little slack; you’re out of practice.

What has helped you? Leave a comment.

Level 1 – you don’t want to change at all, you’re enjoying your sin.
Level 2 – you realize you should change, but you’re not really ready to do anything about it.
Level 3 – you realize you should change, and you’re ready to take steps to do so.

At level 1, you’re not going anywhere at all. You’ve been deceived by sin to the point where you revel in it, as Peter says, “having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. (2 Peter 1:9)”

Getting to level 2 usually involves some kind of wakeup call: you get caught looking at pornography by your spouse or roommates, or you lose a job because you came in late after another night of sexual excess, etc. At this point, you’re not really motivated to change; you’re just feeling bad about the consequences of your actions, and you know that you should do something about it, much in the same way you know you should fix that leaky faucet on the kitchen sink. However, the lure of sin is still too strong. It may take continued failure and loss before you come to the end of yourself, and reach out to God for his help.

Getting to level 3 is involves a conscious decision to make a break with your sin. You repent before God, and probably others, and decide to live a new way. This is the stage I am most interested in here. What motivation will get you moving forward, and keep you moving?

I have been reading John Owen’s work, The Mortification of Sin, and one thing he said really struck me:

“A man who only opposes the sin in his heart for fear of shame among men or eternal punishment from God would practice the sin if there were no punishment attending it.”

Owen’s understanding of our sinful hearts is dead on! For years I labored under this misunderstanding of grace. I tried to stop using pornography because I wanted to avoid the negative effects of this sin, but my motivation was ultimately legalistic, and those efforts met with failure. If I could sin all I wanted without any consequences, then I would gladly embrace sin. My heart hadn’t been set free by grace.

“Such a person has cast off, in this respect, renewing grace, and is kept from ruin only because of restraining grace. He has fallen a great way from grace and returned under the power of the law. Must this not be a great provocation to Christ, that men should cast off his gentle yoke and rule, to cast themselves back under the iron yoke of the law, merely because of their lusts?”

So what should your motivation be? “So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. (2 Corinthians 5:9)” Living a life that is pleasing to God doesn’t come from our iron will to abstain from sin because of our fear of consequences, but rather emanates from practicing faith in Christ because we love him. “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. (Hebrews 11:6)”

Only a motivation that is based on renewing grace will suffice. Having been accepted by God through the work of Christ, we determine to deal with sin because we are forgiven.

I would appreciate your thoughts and comments.

For the last two years I have been preparing a book for publication, called Porn Free: Finding Renewal through Truth and Community, based on the curriculum I developed for the Sexual Integrity for Men course here at Xenos Christian Fellowship. The manuscript is done now, and I’m working with an editor friend of mine to turn it into something readable. A book proposal will be going out soon to publishers, and if all goes well and it gets published, you’ll be seeing it this year. I’ll keep you posted here.

In the meantime, it’s high time I started paying attention to this space.

Now for the news for those of you who came here from there, or were looking for something different.

I had announced earlier this year that I was working on a book, called Bought with a Price. I have re-titled the book and am calling it Porn Free: Finding Renewal through Truth and Community. I’m in the editing and design process before publishing, and will have a sample chapter or two available in the next few weeks on a new web site – pornfreebook.com.

Stay tuned here for more information as it becomes available.

For some time now I have thought that the venue of a class that lasts 10 weeks is too impermanent. Here at Xenos we have men’s and women’s groups that meet weekly that are the right size and place for deep relating and accountability. That would be the perfect place for our group to go over this material. If a man needs to attend the class, but is reluctant, he might find himself studying it anyway in his men’s group. Once the 10 chapters are done, the openness and sharing can continue for months and years, a lifetime. This is the place that should happen.

So what is left is for me is to ruthlessly edit the content, and decide whether to find a publisher or self-publish. I’ve had the advantage of going over the material with my own men’s group, so I know which sentences sound really bad read aloud. I also used the book as the basis for the Spring SI for Men, so I know which content just didn’t connect as well as I thought. I have a couple of people who have given me editorial feedback (there seems to be no shortage of critics) and a real editor who has volunteered as well. Things are looking up for the summer.

I’m heading to Sanibel Island for two weeks, and in between time with my wife and a couple of friends who are coming down for the second week, I will be working on editing, adding more interactivity, layout, and generally holding a gun to the head of each of the 40,000 words. I will have the introduction and chapter 1 available for download on this web site soon.

Brian