seank.mitchell@yahoo.com

At the start of every year, the pandemonium commences. The message of resolutions is posted on the human mind and proclaimed from one dissatisfied life to another. Everyone, all of sudden, again starts to believe that with a few good plans and goals, the human condition can be turbo-charged into improvement. Go into any gym around the New Year, and I am sure that you will witness this craze. Families are in line to sign up for a consultation with the fitness coach. We even subject our personal lives to the trend as we decide to read more books, cook healthier meals, and watch less television.

As we enter the month of March, the wave of resolutions has once again faded into oblivion. The value of goal setting has become silenced as many have fallen short of their New Year aspirations and lost hope. Nevertheless, the self-absorption persists. Instead of feeling positive about their humanity, these humans enter into a phase of discontentment and inferiority as a result of failing to hit the lofty marks they’ve set for themselves. For these individuals, I don’t think it’s presumptuous to assume they are asking the following questions: Where is God in all of this? Is the resolutions system God’s will for our lives? Should we do anything different at the start of next year?

I believe God wants to offer us a different, fresh approach. This approach to resolutions and the fullness of life mixes discipline with spontaneity. If we open up the Bible and look closely, we’ll actually see this mixture behind the bravado of the prophets and Jesus. Their ability was to find and know God through spiritual disciplines and also by observing God’s sovereignty. With Jesus being our Savior, Lord, brother, and spiritual mentor, we are identified as His disciples—His followers. The spiritual disciplines of prayer, fellowship, Biblical reflection, and forgiveness must be chosen over the choice of laxness. There is no possible way to be a disciple without being vulnerable to such disciplines.

Resolutions and goals can help us in the way of discipline. A goal to read and reflect on at least one book of the Bible per month can catapult the spiritual journey to a deeper level. With Scripture imploring that God is always about His work, goals are one way to help us become one in spirit with our active God. The other choice is to become negligent and miss out on the knowledge of God. Having goals is a good choice, but just because they don’t always bring satisfactory results doesn’t mean that the resolutions jazz is a waste of time or unspiritual. Goals only become unspiritual when we put all of our faith in their strength and forget that it is God who is ultimately in control.

On the flip side of goals is a protruding possibility—the danger of deflating the life out of spontaneity. If we are not careful, our goals will lead us to behave as robots, and we will lose sight of the company of God. Our busyness and fixation with our goals can drain the beauty out of an everyday walk with God—such a fixation can distract us from taking time to enjoy a baby’s smile, to spend time with that special someone, to enjoy the wonders of nature, or to spontaneously dip into our bank account to meet a need.

One morning, after having completed my morning ritual of teeth brushing, I was about to exit the bathroom and proceed on to another ritual, when my eyes glanced out the window and caught sight of a squirrel climbing a tree. I suddenly stopped in my tracks to simply watch and wonder as the squirrel sprung from branch to branch before finally descending to the ground below. It then snatched an acorn and dashed into the brush. How easy it would have been to overlook the worthiness of taking time to watch this squirrel live its life; and unbeknownst to us, how often we do miss out on these small wonders.

This tiny creature came into my life—as brief it was—to accomplish something very mystical. The objective of the visit was not related to the subject of my goals—rather, through this divinely crafted creature, God was loving and immanently helping me to trust. The message wasn’t written on visible tablets, but it did remind me that my Father is with me and is providing for me, just as He does for the squirrel. In that pause of my day, I remembered that my life is worth more than a series of victories and failings from my goals and often improbable expectations of myself. I am a being who cannot be separated from God’s love.

God’s appearances to each of us, I cannot predict. His competence to converge the results of our goals for the good of the Kingdom of God, I cannot fully articulate. All is left is to trust—trusting that God is loving us, outwardly appearing to us, actively among us, forever Fathering us, and lavishly relating with us—all in a beautiful convergence. In this convergence is where we find God in the month of March.

Sean K. Mitchell is the director of a non-profit organization and a creative writer. He is the author of The Financial Pilgrimage, a book that doesn’t just talk about money management, but communicates a fresh, financial approach to life that mixes discipline with spontaneity. For more info on the book or to contact Sean, visit www.seankmitchell.com.