Resolve to Love

New Year's Resolutions tend to have a very short shelf life.  Most don't survive intact to the end of January.  We start out with the best of intentions but usually end up aborting the ideas and rewind to the same spot we were in the previous year.  I believe the reason is that resolutions tend to be unwanted ideals that are self-imposed to create a desired outcome.  The outcome we want, the input we have no interest in.

We want to drop weight, but we don't want to drop the donuts or the eating out or the sodas.  We want to increase our muscle mass but don't want mornings in the gym.  We want morning quiet time but don't want to get up earlier.  We want to return to college and finish that degree but we don't want to sit though lectures, sit up at night doing research or take exams.  The dilemma seems clear enough, but what do we do about it?

Well, we could just give up and accept the version of  ourselves that is unhealthy, uneducated and unspiritual, etc.  Or, we could give up the idea of resolutions and embrace the notion of genuinely loving ourselves.  Jesus said, "If you love me, you will do whatt I command" (Jn 14:15).  Why?  Becasue, as the great theologian, Meatloaf, croons, "I will do anything for love."

That really is the ticket. learning to love ourselves the way God does.  God loved us enough to send his Son to die for us (cf. Jn 3:16).  Jesus loved us all the way to the cross.  If we love Him, we will want to serve him, which includes treating ourselves right.  If we love ourselves like He does, we will want the best for ourselves, which will include doing things that we would otherwise not do.

How many undesired trips to the mall have you husbands made because you love your wives?  How many, less than desirable, fishing jaunts have you wives taken because you love your husbands?  How many of you parents have sat through mind-numbing episodes of "Barney" for your childrens' sakes?  Do you get the picture of what we will do for love?

If you really choose tto love yourself, something you want to do by the way, what good things would you do?  Would you exercise your body to give it relieve from the excess pounds that threaten your heart and flattens your arches?  Would you trash the cigarrettes that are trashing your lungs?  Woul you find time daily to nourish your soul, feasting on God's Word?  What wouldn't you do to take care of one you loved - even yourself?  Jus' Ask'n.