Why You Need to Rest in the Lord
What kind of rest do you need? Feeling overwhelmed and exhausted? Learn why you need to rest in the Lord as you include various kinds of rest in your lifestyle. Trusting God brings a kind of rest that brings life and peace.
Rest in the Lord.
Now that is one of those statements that is easy to say…but so hard to do. You see, I like to be busy. When I am busy, I feel productive. And when I feel productive, I feel valuable, like my time on earth is being well spent.
Then there are times when there are just too many tasks left over at the end of the day. The day lasts too long and morning cracks open too early. Exhausted.
Ever feel this way?
We are busyness addicts, compulsively filling our lives with work and commitments, as well relationships and activities. Sometimes because we want to; sometimes because we have to. Others jump on board, adding even more weight to a schedule with no room to breathe. Then there’s the peeps we love and all that they need-can’t say no to that…
[tweetthis]We say yes and yes…and yes ourselves into a frenzy.[/tweetthis]
A worn-out whirl of a frenzy.
We need to rest.
A recent Gallup poll states that 40% of Americans don’t get enough sleep. And yet, sleep is only one form of rest. In reality, we have a variety of needs that call for rest, that sweet, sanctified time given by God for infusing energy back into tired lives.
Different kinds of rest we need.
- Rest from doing: physical and mental rest from too much activity and the problem of overcommitment. Even good things can become too much.
- Rest of body: commit to get enough sleep.
- Rest from work: misplaced priorities can get us stuck in the tyranny of the urgent.
- Rest from conflict: remember that God goes before us and is a mighty refuge.
- Rest from social interaction: take time to come away with God and pray.
- Rest from noise: turn off all the buzz of radio, TV, and iPods. Quiet is good for the soul.
- Rest in being: resting in our identify rather than striving to make ourselves who we already are.
- Rest in faith: believing God frees us from the work of worry.
What is this crazy-wonderful-strange thing called rest?
The word rest contains a variety of meanings including the following: to be silent, be still, and wait.
Here’s my favorite rest stop:
“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:28-29 NASB).
Take a weight off your shoulders as you read this same verse in The Message:
Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.
Rest in the Lord, those unforced rhythms of grace that come when we live light in the embrace of faith.
Sweet friend, don’t let life overwhelm you to the point that you are falling apart at the seams. In a tight, hard spot, exhausted by anxiety and overcome by uncertainty, I once heard God speak to my spirit in the deep of the night:
Child, lay it down before you fall down. Rest in me.
[tweetthis]Lay it down before you fall down. Rest matters.[/tweetthis]
What kinds of rest are you needing today?
Free Resource to Help You Build Habits to Rest in the Lord
Do you need more rest in your life? Discover the benefit of building small habits to decrease stress and empower you to rest body, soul, and spirit. After all, rest includes so much more than sleep. Don’t miss the free printable Habits of Rest to help you create rhythms of rest in your life. Make your personalized plan to get the rest you need.
More Help for Learning to Rest in the Lord
This is such an important topic that I included a chapter on Moments to Rest in my book, Holy in the Moment: Simple Ways to Love God and Enjoy Your Life. (affiliate link at no cost to you)
Live Love This Valentine’s Day
Loving others well can be challenging. As we focus on love this Valentine’s Day, be inspired to receive God’s love for you. When we have God’s love within, we can love others with a pure heart. Be inspired this Valentines’ Day with reflections on Agape, God’s kind of love found in 1 Corinthians 13 and other passages. Don’t miss my Valentine’s Gift available in my Subscriber Library at the end of this post!
Valentine’s Day is right around the corner and love is at the heart of this holiday:
“If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal… and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ” (1 Corinthians 13:1-2).
Okay, let’s be honest here. This just doesn’t go down easy. Sure, it’s easy to get all holy-ed up, kind of like getting gussied up for a ball. Dressed in glitter and satin, it’s easy to feel great about singing with the angels.
But all too soon the ball is over and our good intentions about loving others fade into the ordinariness of life. Life where folks get on your nerves (every last one of ’em), say things that hurt your feelings, and sometimes do things that are just plain wrong.
This is where grit and holiness collide and we have a choice to love.
Motivation comes down to choice when it comes to doing what we do with love. Or not.
If I take this passage at face value, and I am, love is what infuses value into my actions. Most of us won’t speak with angel tongues, and we probably won’t move mountains with bulldozer faith. But even if we did do these spectacular feats, without love we might as well be singing off-key in the shower.
Without love, the best of our doing is just noise.
Like I said, this just doesn’t go down easy. Whatever it is that I can do for God, I am just going through the motions if love isn’t at the heart of it.
If I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere and my best work is nothing more than rubble at my feet. Oh, this is a hard thing.
“No matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love” (The Messgage).
So how do we live out love God’s way?
God’s definition of love.
1 Corinthians 13:4-9 is a well-known Bible passage on love. In reality, it is a powerful description and definition of Christian love. How do we put the attributes of God’s love, agape, into practice in our relationships? Truth is, this is easier said than done.
You can read 1 Corinthians 13 in three versions when you click this link. Reading a variety of translations can help us go deeper into a passage. Three versions I like to read together are NASB, The Message, and The Amplified Bible. As you read, you’ll see what I mean about the challenge of loving others God’s way.
More challenging words from 1 Corinthians 13, God’s love manifesto:
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Ouch.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Oh dear.
Love…
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Can we stop now?
Love…
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything…
Really?!
Love…
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
Last time I checked, my love didn’t quite look like this. Overwhelmed, I want to give up and stay in bed, throwing the covers over my head. I feel discouraged when despite my good intentions, my selfishness barges in, and I blow it…again. My heart is willing and wanting to love others with the purity of agape, the Greek word for perfect love. When I rely on my own, limited and often self-focused ability to love, the outcome falls short.
This is when I need to remember what true love is.
These famous words are a description of God’s complete love. This is the love He has for each one of us, whether or not we love Him back…or even believe He exists.
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16 NASB).
Same word, same love in both of these passages (agape), and it is gift wrapped with our name on it.
If this is God’s love defined for us, the way He loves us, then is also a picture of how His love can work in and through us.
When I bang my head against the wall of my sin, I must remember that I can’t produce this kind of love by myself.
It is not in me.
- I can’t just reach deeper in my pocket and pull it out of a heart gone wild with self.
- I won’t find this kind of love sitting on the shelf in the grocery store.
- I can’t borrow it from a neighbor like a cup of sugar.
- I can’t fake it.
- I can’t dress it up and pretend.
God isn’t fooled, and He sees right through all of this effort.
This kind of love is only found in one place of hope:
“….and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who was given to us” (John 13:34).
Here’s the truth of it:
We love
BECAUSE
He first
Loved us.
(1 John 4:19)
So when it’s hard to love others with this complete God-love, I come back to this:
” …God is love…” (1 John 4:16).
And the best part is, He’s willing to share. He is willing to dwell within our hearts, growing love from the inside to the outside. Blossoming forth from motivation to action, Christ expresses Himself as love.
So here’s my prayer for you and for me:
that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory,
to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man,
so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith;
and that you, being rooted and grounded in love…
Ephesians 3:16-17
This Valentine’s Day, receive the love that fills up and overflows. Then turn around and give what you’ve got–true love that never fails.
How are you showing love this Valentine’s Day?
My Valentine’s Day gift for you!
Add a little love to your life with these quotes and verses to share. Loving God and loving others is what we are made for. Print out these quotes for inspiration, crafts, gifts, and more. You’ll find the printable PDF with all of these quotes in my Subscriber Library. Click the image below or click this link to sign up. You’ll get a welcome letter with the link for my latest freebies and access to the Library.
Leave a comment and share your ideas. Let’s help each other show love to others in a tangible way!
Share a little love by sharing this post on Facebook, Pinterest, or Twitter today.
How to Make the Most of Each Day This Year: Let God Bring it, Part 4
Let’s continue diving into Psalm 37 and God’s simple instructions for living life full out. Choosing and releasing, learning and letting are all tangled up in the bare bones of Psalm 37:1-5:
Don’t fret
Don’t envy
Trust God
Do good
Dwell
Cultivate faithfulness
Delight in God
Commit your way to God
Keep on Trusting Him
When my focus runs like a wild thing, searching in a million directions, the world seems way too big. I feel too small to make a difference. I give into worry, fretting about people and situations, as problems grow bigger than God in my skewed emotions. When my selfish desires strong-arm my good intentions, I wonder, Why in the world would a holy God spend His time on me? These are the moments, the days when I need to keep working on these simple habits of faith. Trust, dwell, delight…
Footsteps of faith
Making the most of each day has everything to do with taking these daily footsteps of faith, realizing they are all different ways of trusting God.
When we keep putting one foot of faith in front of the other, choosing to trust God today, to do good today, to be all there today, to delight in God, the hardest of days will become a most-kind of day.
Here’s the key.
What we do matters.
What we choose matters.
What we believe matters.
I started out this year with an unsettled restlessness, unsure of my path as I keep passing my days with heart trying to work its way out through the clacking of my fingers on a keyboard. Trying to measure what I cannot see, I ask God, am I really doing what I am supposed to be doing? Am I faithfully following Your plan, the God-given desires You’ve placed in my heart? Or am I stubbornly, determinedly trying to fit into a mold of my own making?
Overcoming self-doubt
As I lay my heart open in these words of Psalm 37, God presses in with a whisper, Trust in Me with your whole heart. Commit your desires and concerns, your fears and failures to Me. Dwell where you are…which is in Me.
Cultivate faithfulness by feeding on truth. Digest it and it will nourish your life. Work hard, but don’t let the work take My place. It is part of your life, don’t let it become your life. It is something you do, not something you are.
When we trust and dwell…
God does the heavy lifting, transforming our hearts and bringing out the best in us.<Tweet this.
Concentrate on the simple things, these dwelling things, and I will bring you where you are going. Delight in Me, not in your way, not in your doing. Now is the time to live it out. Now is the time to make the most of each day, and I will bring it.
I am seeing anew that these footsteps of faith, these daily habits of trusting and delighting in God, place me right where I need to be–secure in the circle of His arms. Letting go of myself, I can receive what He is doing, the transforming stamp of God on a life.
He will
bring forth
your righteousness.
The work that bogs down a soul comes when I try to make myself right. Forgetting that God is the only one who can and will bring out His life in me, I run the treadmill of try harder and do more.
It is God’s way of doing and being right that our souls crave. This bringing forth is His work in us and it is righteousness that is received rather than achieved.
How crazy-backwards we mix up the work of this faith life. The only work required is to trust Him, to live life believing. He is the one who brings it.
And when God brings it, we will truly experience the most and the best of each day.< Tweet this.
How are you learning to let God bring it in your life?
If you would like to be part of God bringing it forth, share this post on Facebook. Thanks for sharing!
How to Make the Most of Each Day This Year: Commit Your Way, Part 3
How to make the most of each day? We find it all spelled out in Psalm 37. Welcome back to this series. Part 1 and Part 2.
Commit your way to God.
Ever thought through what it means to commit your way to God? In reality, this is our life journey, and it includes our direction, manner, course of life, and moral character. Needless to say, our way covers a lot of personal territory.
All your ways.
Are you a morning person or a night owl? Is your personality extroverted or introverted, or somewhere in between? Are you a list maker or a “go where the wind takes me” kind of person? Do you struggle to curb your tongue, complete tasks, or keep your house clean? Have you committed these things to God?
Whether your journey has been smooth or filled with bumps in the road and unexpected turns, commit your way to the Lord.
Trust Him with the whole journey.
Say it out loud and write it down. “Lord, my way, my journey, and my life is Yours. I commit my way to you and I trust you with my life.”
- Relationships
- Personality
- Vocation and education
- Experiences
- Gifts and Talents
- Ministry
- Dreams and goals
Right in the middle of who we are and what we are doing, this is where God wants to be.<Tweet this. Roll your cares, questions, and concerns onto Him. Place in His capable hands your hopes and dreams, the desires of your heart. Make the most of each day this year as you commit your way to the Lord.
Which way should I go?
Have you ever tried to go two directions at once? It isn’t possible–believe me, I’ve tried. You can’t go left and right at the same time, and you can’t live for yourself and for God at the same time. Eventually we get caught in the tension of trying to live for self and for God, and this is an exhausting, miserable place to be. I have spent too many days trying to hang on to self and hang onto God.
Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount that we cannot serve two masters:
“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” Matthew 6:24
Later, James writes about the instability of being a double-minded man who is driven and tossed by the winds of life. There is an uncomfortable stress that takes up residence in our hearts when we try to live a divided life–part for God and a lot for self. Anxiety and confusion also result when we only partially trust God, living on the part-way plan.
Go all in.
“Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind and do not rely on your own insight or understanding. In all your ways know, recognize, and acknowledge Him, and He will direct and make straight and plain your paths” (Proverbs 3:5-6 AMP).
Go all in. Don’t hold back. Commit your way to the Lord and trust Him with the results.
He will do it.
The burden of proof is on Him.
Which area of life do you find the greatest challenge to commit to God? Use the social media buttons to share this post.
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How to Make the Most of Each Day This Year: Delighting in God, Part 2
Let’s face it, we are all interested in achieving goals, maximizing potential, and living a good life. After all, when is the last time you planned to fail? Do you ever say things like, “Think I’d really like to be miserable today?” Or how about this one, “I hope I never get what I want?”
We’re just not wired this way.
Welcome back to a look at Psalm 37, focusing on how to make the most of each day this year. (Click the link if you missed part 1 of this post.) Just to recap, here are the first couple of simple (not necessarily easy) steps to full-life living today and every day.
Don’t give into negative emotions (fretting, worrying, envying…).
Trust in the Lord.
Occupy yourself with doing good.
Dwell in the land (your now, your God).
Grow faithfulness.
Easy-peasy, right?
How to delight yourself in the Lord.
We can find a million and one things to delight in, to chase after, or set our hearts on. In today’s media-bombarded culture, there’s always something new to delight in. Enjoying God can seem like a nebulous activity of the super spiritual, yet over and over God calls our hearts to find our delight in Him.
Delight in…
His Character
His Word
His way
His works
His nearness
An honest question…
Is my delight in God or in other things? <Tweet this. Cuts to the quick, doesn’t it?
Recently, God reminded me that trust is the foundation of delight. Delighting in God is a specific way of loving Him with my whole heart. As I trust Him with all of my desires and concerns, fears and failures, joys and victories, delight will spread wide and sink in deep.
So what’s my job this year?
To delight in God.
What God will do…
And when I do, this is His promise in return: I will give you the desires of your heart. At first glance, this may look like a spiritual version of writing a letter to Santa Clause, but it is so much more.
This promise is about transformation. It’s about abiding in Christ to the extent that His desires become my desires. Certainly there are times when God simply blesses us with good gifts, but the better gift is to receive the desires that He can place within us. This is the secret to making the most of each day–desiring the best things, the real things, rather than the countless counterfeit paths to joy.
Delight in God increases when I experience His faithfulness and tender mercy.
It grows strong when I discover that His way truly is best.
It multiplies when He gives extraordinary grace to a gal who is more than a mess.
Delight overflows when I count His blessings rather than hoard my fears.
More delight.
But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night. Psalm 1:2
When my anxious thoughts multiply within me, Your consolations delight my soul. Psalm 94:19
How amazing are the deeds of the Lord! All who delight in him should ponder them. Psalm 111:2
Surround me with your tender mercies so I may live, for your instructions are my delight. Psalm 119:77
So this year…
let’s make a conscious decision to…delight in the nearness of God.
What’s your favorite way to delight in God? Share this post with someone who could use a little delight today.
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How to Make the Most of Each Day: Dwell and Cultivate, Part 1
Ever stand in the gap between yesterday and tomorrow with an unsettled question pulling at your insides? What next?
As January begins to roll into February, I consider the possibilities of a year. Peering into the coming days, I find myself teetering between uncertainties and opportunities. Something inside pauses to reflect, whether or not my hands stop moving from task to task. Time stretches out before me with a question mark.
What next?
God answers the What Next questions in my heart in a recent quiet time of prayerfully reading the Psalms. His answer is not a roadmap or itinerary of specific things to come.
Instead He fills the open spaces with simple instructions for making the most of each day this year. Lessons for a life well-lived spread across the pages of my Bible, and I discover a formula for making the most of every opportunity and standing firm in every challenge. Join me for the Psalm 37 series:
How to make the most of each day.
Don’t let fears, frustrations, failures or worry wear away the possibilities this year. In these verses, the Psalmist is speaking specifically to the temptation to chaff with worry, irritation, and rising anger when the evil-doers prosper. When things are not like they should be.
When the future looks dim because the wicked prosper and push.
Do not fret. Fretting is a slow burn that can blaze up hot and fast.
Resist the pull of envy, which is pure poison to the soul regardless of the cause.
Wrestling with our emotions we wonder, what’s the solution to fear, fretting, worry, and envy?
Trust in the Lord.
Doing and being are paired together in this simple instruction. Simple isn’t always easy, yet when we live life from a foundation of trusting God, it is the answer that is always right.
[tweetthis twitter_handles=”@GingHarrington” hidden_hashtags=”#psalm37, #Bestday”]Sometimes we trust God, but do nothing.[/tweetthis]
Other times, we are busy doing, but faith is left behind.
We rush ahead doing good in our own strength.
Truth be told, there is a fine balance between trusting and doing that creates faithfulness. It is a balance in the art of living by faith, this doing what is good with a heart firm in the trustworthy hands of God.
Dwell in the land.
“Bloom where you are planted,” is a familiar saying we’ve all heard countless times. Live, really live, where God has put you. Don’t put off abundant living today for some wished for thing in the future. Be fully where you are, trusting God and doing the good stuff.
How many times have we wished away today for some future condition? Life will be better when ______. We’ve all wrestled with this temptation to be discontent with today, waiting for something better tomorrow.
Dwell in the land. Your place. Your now.
[tweetthis twitter_handles=”@GingHarrington” hidden_hashtags=”#Psalm37, #bestday”]Live fully right where you are.[/tweetthis]
Dwelling in the land has everything to do with living life full right where you are.
Dwelling in this moment means we don’t look back with regret.
We don’t strain forward with an unwillingness to invest fully in today.
Prosper and bloom where you are. Dig for the blessings buried beneath the soil of your present circumstances.
Cultivate faithfulness.
The second part of this simple instruction has the potential to reap great reward. Grow faithfulness. Nurture faith by feeding on God’s word daily. Care for it, take effort to grow in God’s word in such a way that it blossoms forth in the way that you live.
When you don’t know what to do next, grow faithfulness, sinking your roots deep into God’s Word. Faithful obedience is never the wrong answer and it fully answers the question of what next.
Which of these instructions do you most need to hear today?
The Best Solution to a Resolution Rut
The best solution to your Resolution Rut: Seek Him.
Feeling stuck can be miserable. Do firmly entrenched patterns keep you from moving forward? It’s hard to live life full, with every day your best day when you’re in a rut. If you find yourself always making goals from a negative perspective it’s time.
Time to break out of your Resolution Rut with a new way of making goals. Time to approach the new year from the best way to get out of your Resolution Rut. It’s time to go deeper to get out of that rut.
Just for a moment, let go of your self-improvement plans and lay your heart open in the light of that blessing we call grace.
Go Deep: Ask God for His vision for your year.
As you seek God’s vision for this year, take time to remember the joys and sorrows, the successes and struggles of the past year. Savor God’s faithfulness. Look at the year as a whole and see the big picture. Ask the Holy Spirit to remind you of the ground you’ve covered this year.
Remember.
Look back at the big brush strokes of God’s Word across your life in the last year. Ask yourself, what is the main thing God was doing in my life this past year? Sometimes years are like the seasons. We have planting and growing times, days of harvest, as well as days of dormancy in the cold chill of winter. When we go deep with God, there are often significant passages of scripture that have been guideposts in our journey of a year. Verses and truths that are part of the season, part of who we’ve become this year.
Reflect.
God often works in our lives through process, one day at a time. Taking time to look at the whole can give us a big-picture perspective God’s faithful work in our lives. Join Him in the grace He is working into your life day by day and year by year.
Respond.
Let the lessons of yesterday show you where to dig in this year. As God gives vision and focus for your new year, respond in faith. Prayerfully give your heart and pen to the Lord and ask Him to help you write out today’s goals from yesterday’s lessons. Seek Him. This is the very best way to get out of a stale Resolution Rut that is often forgotten before spring daffodils lift their faces to the sun. Seek Him in the simple things that add up to faithful living.
Trust God to place in you the desires and goals that come from His heart to yours.
Believe He will bring out the best in you as you walk in faith. This year, let grace make every day your best day as you go deep with God.
As I take the birds-eye-view to this past year, it has been a season of transition with graduations and a military retirement. It has been a year of rejoicing in the end of life as we know it as a military family. Job well done and the race is finished. It has also been a time seeking and waiting with a what’s next pressing on our hearts. As I look back through my journal, the words of Psalm 37 show up again and again. Words of instruction for vibrant living show me plenty of material for my 2014 goals. These are words dig into deeply, letting trust and faithfulness break out of the ruts of the past.
Trust in the Lord and do good;
Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.
Delight yourself in the Lord;
And He will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the Lord,
Trust also in Him, and He will do it.
He will bring forth your righteousness as the light
And your judgment as the noonday.
Psalm 37:3-6
Seek God as you go deep into committing your days to His faithful hand. Commit your resolutions to God and let Him teach you how to make every day your best day.
What is God’s vision for your year? Share your answers here.
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Two Common Resolution Ruts that Could be Holding You Back
Avoid the Resolution Rut by making every day your best day is the first post in this New Year kick off on the blog.
How do you know if you’re stuck in a Resolution Rut that is keeping you from making every day your best day? Growth, progress, and success in acheiving goals builds enthusiasm and hope, adding energy and a positive outlook to make each day special.
Join me for a look at two common Resolution Ruts.
Rut #1: Fix-Her-Up
The first road to a Resolution Rut comes when we always make our goals from the perspective of fixing ourselves, strengthening weaknesses, overcoming failures, or satisfying a constant discontent with ourselves. This rut is entrenched in the glass-is-half-empty way of thinking. This motivation trap is consistently fed with a diet of media and worldly hype of beauty and success, and it is all about what we are not.
What would happen if you break out of this rut, and choose a goal to develop a strength, to take a success to the next level, or to learn something new?
How will 2014 be different if we embrace what’s right rather than lament what’s wrong? What if we focus on turning talents into strengths and gifts into blessings?
“People are at their best when they are able to use their talents and abilities — the traits and behaviors at which they naturally excel” (Gallup Strength Center). Most of us spend much more time trying to fix weaknesses rather than develop gifts that create energy and build joy into life.
Add developing a strength to your fix-it arsenal and watch this new year take off. <Tweet this. Put Strengths Finder on your reading list for a practical tool for identifying and defining your strengths. The book comes with an access code to online testing to identify your strengths. Worth a look for sure.
Rut#2: Repeat Play
Another way we can get stuck in a Resolution Rut is when our goals and resolutions stay the same year after year with no forward progress. If your goals have been exactly the same for the last five years, you just might be stuck on Repeat Play. <Tweet this.
I know from personal experience that this is an easy place to get caught. For years my goals have revolved around loosing the same 20 pounds and overcoming my scatter-brain tendencies. The best way out of this stuck place is to look at why we keep struggling with the same things. Are we making forward progress or just spinning our wheels?
Sometimes break-through is as simple as identifying the small steps that lead to meeting a goal. Other times it is as difficult as hanging on to motivation and determination over the long haul. If you are stuck on Repeat Play, look for the secondary things that may be inhibiting your success.
Maybe the goal is too big, or two vague. There is a world of difference between a generic, desire to loose weight and an intentional choice to develop healthy eating habits, work out 4 days a week, and be accountable to someone. Do you need more information, support, accountability, or better planning? Taking time to identify what’s getting in the way can help us get some forward traction on those things that never seem to change.
This past year, I was able to move out of the Repeat Play Rut on weight loss for the first time since battling Graves Disease 13 years ago. Having a plan and accountability was extremely helpful in turning a goal into reality. This year, loosing weight is still on my list, but this time my goal involves losing another 15 pounds and maintaining motivation to build on last year’s progress. Experience break-through in something that’s been on my list for years provides a positive outlook to embrace each day with hope.
Four things that helped me out of my Resolution Rut:
1. The inspiration of friends that have experienced success. Watching someone I know work toward a goal successfully was very motivating and gave me the courage to try again.
2. Prayer and seeking to grow in the spiritual fruit of self-discipline enabled me to stay focused on my source of strength.
3. Good information and a good plan. When you’re stuck on Repeat Play, there are times when it helps to get outside yourself and apply the expertise of others.
3. I used a health coach to provide encouragement and accountability to meet my goals.
Before and After
Just so you know, I am still working on the scatter-brain thing. Some goals we have to keep working at over time, but getting out of a Resolution Rut and experiencing forward progress can help us move out of a rut in other areas as well.
What steps can you take today to get out of a Resolution Rut?
Share your thoughts on this and let’s encourage one another. What you share may be the exact thing that someone else needs to read. Leave your comments here, and I will be praying that God will bring you out of your Resolution Rut with grace and joy!
Past Posts on New Year’s Goals:
How to Change Your Life with One Simple Thing
Printable List: Simple Things to Change Your Life
A Little Fun with New Year’s Resolutions
Avoid the Resolution Rut: Make Every Day Your Best Day
What’s in a year?
They come. They go…with increasing speed. Days turn into weeks and before you know it, fifty-two weeks have turned into a year. It is easy to fall into the busy pace of days and lose the perspective that life is a gift to be enjoyed and lived to the full.
Most of us jump into January, the start of a new year, looking forward to the next 365 days. We make goals and resolutions, mustering up will power and wisdom to create change and chase dreams.
Start your year out right.
New Year’s resolutions have become a traditional way of starting out the year–and with good reason. Optimistic, we want to start the new year out right. When it comes to setting goals, perspective is important. Too often, my tendency is to inspect myself, looking for flaws, those gapping-open imperfections that could use a little fixing. To tell you the truth, this can get to be a bit of a downer.
How about you?
How many of your goals for this year are targeted at patching, changing, strengthening a weakness or flaw? Do your goals rise out of the fallow ground of failure or problems that dog at your heels? Certainly there is a place for this. Sometimes, we do need to address things that need to change. Growth, improvement, and change are necessary. But…
It can be easy to fall into a Resolution Rut.
What’s that you ask? A rut is a firmly entrenched pattern that keeps us from moving forward. It’s hard to live life full, with every day your best day when you’re in a rut.
I once heard that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. How many years did I have loose 15 pounds on my New Year’s goals, yet kept trying to lose weight the same way with little result? The same 15 pounds, and then some stayed on my list for years. That’s a Resolution Rut!
If you find yourself always making goals from a negative perspective, it may be time to break out a new way of making goals. You don’t have to abandon the old problem-solving ways, just add something that develops potential. Enjoy motivation that flows from your joys and strengths. All of a sudden, motivation shifts from something you should do (but don’t really want to…) to something you want to do. Enthusiasm and excitement will quickly overshadow the sense of duty or obligation that should creates.
Is a Resolution Rut keeping you from making every day your best day?
Join me in my next post as we take a look at some common Resolution Ruts. For more on New Year’s Resolutions and Goals, check out some past posts:
How to Change Your Life with One Simple Thing
Printable List: Simple Things to Change Your Life
A Little Fun with New Year’s Resolutions
Some Thoughts on New Year’s Resolutions
Make Today’s Goals from Yesterday’s Lessons
