It’s probably fitting that the tradition of declaring a New Year’s resolution began with the Babylonians, associated as that culture is with wickedness and excess, which are usually the catalysts for my own resolutions. The passing of another year leads me to reflect on my unachieved aspirations. It makes me think about the great crevice between what I am and who I want to be. It generally leaves me, in other words, down in the dumps. Self-flagellating by nature and training, I try to rectify these feelings of failure by virtue of my Babylonian resolutions of excess: exercise more, pray more, read more, write more, do more, be more.

At dinner last night my wife pointed out how often we take our goal-orientation to the Lord. She told me about friends who, though they didn’t think it would be possible, decided to go through the adoption process with their foster child. That’s how they explained it, she said, that God had called them to go through the adoption process. Our temptation is to think that God is calling us to the end goal — in their case, to adoption. We project our goal-orientation onto God, and in doing so we make him too small and too big. Too small because we imagine that he needs us to achieve his ends, that this is the bulk of his working with us, to accomplish a heavenly To Do list. We make him too big at the same time, however, because we forget that he is authoring and perfecting our faith, which is less about achieving grand objectives than indwelling us, enduring with us, suffering with us, and ultimately, conquering with us.

He is much more God-with-us than God-through-us, yet I find myself seeing the world through the lens of my accomplishments, and seeing the Lord that way as well. What does he want me to do here? What is he going to make happen as a result of this trial or tragedy? When is he going to change these difficult circumstances? That when is frequently on my mind, caught up as I am in my goals. Not only do I imagine that God is trying, like me, to get a lot of things done, I imagine that he is at my disposal, to help me with my list. I talk a good game about being his instrument and so on, but in my heart I often have it backwards, asking his help with my will, rather than offering myself to his will.

And I forget that his will includes my transformation. I’m busily trying to improve my circumstances, and he is patiently improving me — though often I work against him — in those very circumstances I petition him to change. I imagine that there is some great work out there that he and I need to roll up our sleeves and get done, quick, before another year passes. Perhaps there are some things he has in mind to use me for, but I think I need to focus less on the accomplishments of my hands and more on the transformation of my spirit. I need to pray for the stillness that is an end to resistance and stubbornness, which are two of my many flaws.

It’s not exactly a New Year’s resolution I’m after, fraught as that phrase is with human effort. I think what I need, instead, is a New Year’s resignation. Rather than roaring into January with a flurry of new efforts, I think I will begin with as much stillness, and listening, and patience as I can muster. Because the real work at hand, at least for me, is in the depths of my own heart.