Making Different Choices in the New Year

As I survey the past year, I can think of a few things I'd like to do differently or better in the coming year. It seems that not everything I've done has been optimal. I've made little decisions here and there that have been time wasters or that have not served ultimate priorities. What can I do differently in the coming year?

It seems that we often choose things that hinder us in our pursuit of happiness. Sometimes our ability to develop habits proves helpful (the discipline of exercise, for example). Yet at other times this propensity for habits inhibits us in our quest for happiness (think overeating or overspending). Obviously, we need to make some different choices if we truly want to be happy.

But perhaps a deeper question needs to be asked—the question of “why?” Why are we so prone to make choices that impede our joy? Why are we so inclined to continue in habitual patterns of living that prevent us from experiencing the contentment we so earnestly seek? The answer, it seems, is that we, as humans, are the kind of beings for whom futile choices come quite naturally. I can’t count the number of times I have personally chosen to pursue something that was absolutely contrary to what wisdom prescribed. Unfortunately, this isn’t something to which I must look to the distant past to observe. And we need only scan the headlines to observe that this is a universal problem. Humanity seems to be held hopelessly captive to reaping the rewards of foolish decisions.

I think we must recognize that making wrong choices is something from which we are unable to set ourselves free. Our problem is not only that we make the kinds of choices that hold us back from finding happiness, but that we are the kind of people for whom such choices seem reasonable and good. At the end of the day, we all make choices based on our greatest affections in a given moment. We all do what we most want to do. But what if the thing we most want in a given instant will lead to our downfall? What if our strongest desire at the moment of decision will lead us to make a choice that will continue to hamper us in our pursuit of joy? This, I believe, is the root of the problem. Our will—the human decision-making mechanism—is in bondage to the often times misguided affections which reside deep within each one of us.

What’s the answer? Should I just try harder? Whether or not I try harder is ultimately dependent upon what I most want to do. And my problem up to this point is that I want the thing that’s holding me back more than I want to overcome it. Otherwise, I would have dispatched with the thing long ago. The real answer, then, is that my affections need to change. I must become the kind of person for whom good and wise choices come naturally. The inner longings which drive my decisions are in desperate need of transformation.

This is connected to the story of redemption about which the Scriptures speak. Part of the redemption God brings through Christ is redemption from the slavery of our will. Too often the Christian message has been truncated to a message about our eternal destiny. We have all sinned and deserve to go to hell, but Jesus came and took the penalty we deserved upon Himself so that we might have eternal life. While this is most certainly true in regards to the Christian, it is only part of the redemption that is offered in Christ. The message of the Christian faith is not only that Jesus came to save us from the penalty of sin, but that Jesus came to save us from sin in its totality. Jesus came to save us from the penalty of sin, the effects of sin, and the reign of sin in our lives. He came to deliver us from the curse that has come upon all creation as the result of the Fall. This deliverance begins in this life. In terms of our poor decision making, the choices that hold us back are choices that are contrary to God’s law. If we live in accordance with God’s law we will be blessed; if we disobey God’s law it will result in pain and turmoil. Yet because of what we are deep down—sinners by nature and choice—we all choose to disobey God’s law and to make decisions that hold us back in our quest for happiness. The good news is that Christ came into the world and took upon Himself the pain and turmoil which should have been upon His people because of their disobedience. Christ thereby rescues us from the pain and turmoil of disobedience, changing us and our desires, and enabling us to make the kinds of choices which will result in blessing.

And so the answer is not just to make different choices. The thing from which we need to be freed is our propensity not to make different choices. We are voluntary slaves in that we habitually choose to live in ways that are contrary to human success and happiness. Our decision-making mechanism is, in effect, broken. Thus, we are unable to make the choices needed to set ourselves free and must look to Christ to set us free.

At the end of the day, we can only experience true happiness, fulfillment, and meaning in life when Christ becomes all-satisfying. Too often Christianity is looked upon as a list of dos and don’ts, but this is just religion. Religion says you have to do x, y, and z in order for God to be pleased with you. But we are unable to do x, y, and z because we are sinners by nature and choice! Jesus came to save us from religion. Jesus came to do x, y, and z on our behalf so that we might have a relationship with the only One in whom we can know true happiness. The tragedy of our sinfulness is that we become enslaved to a life of idol worship. We seek our joy in family, career, money, school, wine, women, song, basketball, stamp collecting, or a whole host of other things that can never truly satisfy us. It’s not that these things are inherently bad. Idolatry is just what happens when good things become ultimate things. Idolatry is what happens when we seek to fill our inner need for the awe-evoking, all-supreme God of glory with anything else. But God comes to us in His unsearchable grace and transforms our lives through the life, death, and resurrection of His Son, opening our eyes to the truth of His revelation and instilling within us a love for Him.

Praise be to you, Lord Christ!

In the coming year it is my hope to rely more wholeheartedly upon Christ knowing that He is the only One who is able to rescue me from my propensity to make choices that threaten to snuff out the joy I'm seeking in Christ.