Higher Resolution

I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus…Phillipians 3:13

Resolution is a very loaded word.

It can be used to describe the clarity of your TV, the end of an argument, the nice chord that finishes your favourite song, or even the subsidence of swelling in your feet. But the definition on most of our minds at this time involves our collective desire to make a ‘resolution’ that can improve our lives somehow—-if we stick with it.

Whenever our culture celebrates another lap around the sun, there seems to be a magical boost in our ability to try something new or difficult. Ads for nicotine patches and miracle diets all try to capitalize on this wishful window of time where we are more open than usual to make some big adjustments (and pay for it). So on this first Monday of the new decade, before disappointment and frustration have had their chance to burst any of your hopeful bubbles, let me be the first to stick a little pin in your plans:

Have you resolved to forgive the faults and failures of others as easily as you have brushed over your own shortcomings this past year?

We love to give ourselves a nice clean canvas to paint the new year with, but can we do the same for those who’ve vandalized last year’s potential masterpiece? If we’re not careful, the same stains of offenses, misunderstandings, and hurt feelings will start to sabotage this shiny new year in very familiar ways. Without forgiveness, emotional deja vú can strike us in completely new settings with entirely different people.

You can’t hide from your own heart.

So as you take your first steps into this new decade, you can either decide to play the blame game again or climb to the higher ground where God leads those who make knowing and pleasing Him their highest resolution. This is the HD vision of God’s glory that Moses saw on Mt Sinai. This is the beautiful chord that resolves psalm 51. This is the solution that settled the disagreement between man and God forever, “Father forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing.”

Try saying those words today and really believing it.

The reason most new years resolutions fizzle out by mid-January isn’t due to a mere lack of will power. It’s because so many of us are trying so hard to self-improve without God’s help while still carrying around a heavy suitcase full of unresolved tension we’ve collected over the years.

I know of an amazing diet where you can lose countless pounds of dead weight without even joining a gym. All it requires is a higher resolution that is renewed every day of the year. Your Personal Trainer/Creator knows what your life really needs to make it better.

Resolve to listen – choose to follow – and live to forgive like Him…

Happy New Week,
Brandon and Pamela Muñoz
Freedomhouse Church, London