New Year’s Day. And resolutions. They just go together. It’s the start of a new year. And we all have things we want to change. Maybe it’s more exercise or eating better or reducing clutter. Then there are the deeper resolutions, like being more patient with your spouse, not letting anger rule you, or taking time to be quiet.
Yet our best attempts at change are often sabotaged. We run amuck after a few attempts, sliding back into old patterns. Heidi sees this cycle every year. The exercise center she regularly attends is jammed every year from January to mid-February with newcomers. Then it settles back to the old crowd.
But the itch for self-improvement remains. “Maybe this time I’ll change. Maybe this month I’ll get it. Maybe this year I’ll move forward.” It’s not that the itch is wrong. It’s just that we don’t know how to scratch it. Our solutions are often too shallow to address what we most need. So…I want to propose a resolution this year for myself and for all of you, one that I have never, ever heard anyone else suggest. Here it is.
To live out of a full heart.
That’s it. That’s all. And yet to do this would produce the most radical change imaginable. Why? Because your heart is all about desire. It is all about longing. And a full heart is one that is understands the desire, acknowledges the longing, and tastes the fullness as it comes.
What would change in our lives if we lived out of a full heart? I don’t know the whole story. But I think we would be more alive, more understanding, more in the moment, more unafraid. We wouldn’t be just surviving or going through the motions or getting to the next thing on the calendar. I think we would see clearer and love deeper. I also think we would be more like Jesus.
Here’s what he said about a full heart: “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me…streams of living water will flow from within him.” Jesus was the first man to live out of full heart. And his life still reverberates down through history. Here he gives us the same offer. “Let me fill you. Then let that overflow to other empty hearts.”
This isn’t self-improvement. This is a self-revolution. That’s what I want this year. Come and join me.
Landmarks 