Beyond Weight Loss: 3 New Year's Resolutions for Your Soul

I imagine that most New Year’s resolutions are forgotten by now!

Most people who make resolutions are deadly serious when they begin. But after a few weeks, after they’ve failed a few times in cutting calories or reading the Bible daily, they give up. Well, here are some resolutions that are worth considering because they will change your life.

Resolution #1: Nurture Your Marriage

Not one New Year’s resolution list that I’ve seen has a single declaration about marriage.

Yet stable healthy marriages are the bedrock of secure societies worldwide. More important than exercise, staying hydrated, and cutting out sugar is cultivating a heart devoted to strengthening your marriage.

In all relationships Jesus is our model. Here is a simple yet impossible formula for your marriage. Simply stated resolutions:

• Don’t be selfish ... don’t look out only for your own interests.

• Do have the mind of Christ … the attitude of serving your spouse in love as Christ served us and loved us.

Just reading this short list reminds me I’m a failure. You too? I have learned it is impossible for me to do these things in my own ability and power. That’s good; I finally am resigned to my inabilities.

Here is what makes the impossible possible:

• Admitting I can’t change myself, much less my spouse. Selfishness is my natural inclination. “Me first” is always easier than “you first.”

• Understanding how to balance the command to “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:4) is impossible for me but entirely possible for Christ in me.

• Having the mind of Christ is the only hope for any marriage at any season or life stage.

To help you get started, pray these words: “My Jesus, thank You that nothing is impossible for You! It is Your Spirit in me that transforms my attitude, my heart, my motives, and my desires into conformity with Your example of humility in my marriage and all relationships.”

Remember: If you choose to make your marriage your number one resolution for this year, feeling incapable is a good place to be. The impossible standard of holiness God calls us to forces us to be utterly dependent on Him.

I pray you will join us in making this resolution number one on your list. And I pray you will ask the Spirit of God to make you more like Jesus in your marriage.

You’ll be glad you did.

Resolution #2: Be Still

Winter is the perfect time to begin acting on this resolution—to begin, perhaps begin again, a new habit of being still. We sang a few weeks ago, “the world in solemn stillness lay” and “all is calm, all is bright” ... perfect descriptions of the quiet of winter, invitations to hush our too-busy lives in reverence for His ever-near presence.

Here are three ways to “Be still and know that I am God.”

Go for winter walks. Feel the hush of winter’s cold that sends most living things into hibernation, silencing the cacophony of summer’s sounds. Look up at the beauty of long limbs carrying hundreds of branches heavenward; each tree a maze of intricate patterns and shapes, cathedrals of wonder and worship. Recognize there the grandeur of the Creator. Be humbled by your small place in relation to Him. It is good to remember, “what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” (Psalm 8:4).

Be still in this place.

Set an alarm on your watch or phone and, when it sounds, remember God’s faithfulness ... as dependable as the clock regulated by the earth’s fixed yet constant movement, and as secure as the steadily revolving seasons. “While the earth remains … summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease” (Genesis 8:22).

Be still in this moment.

Read for your soul. Social media too often steals our peace, satisfaction, and rest. Instead feed on good books.

Choose wisely. My long-distance friend, Allison Burr, wrote, “unusual amounts of output = dire need for recharging, which is most rapidly and rewardingly accomplished through books.” If you aren’t sure what to read, anything by C.S. Lewis, Tim Keller, Madeleine L’Engle, J.R.R. Tolkien, or other classic authors will enlarge your vocabulary, challenge your thinking and feed your soul.

Be still in your heart.

“Help me Lord to make moments to be still, to order my life to receive winter’s treasures, to feed on You daily. Amen.”

Resolution #3: Embrace Your Body

“What lust is for men, comparison is for women,” said my friend Joanne. She is right.

Each year we see evidence of the perpetually ugly sin of men, even old men, lusting after women … again and again and again.

We rightly say it is evil, selfish, and often an abuse of power.

But do we women see our perpetual self-loathing, our self-comparison with every image, every friend, every woman regardless of age, as ugly? Selfish?

We do not.

For many women, the beauty of aging means a reduction of the relentless, competitive pressure to compare ourselves to others. But while my criticisms of my body, my face, my weight, my abilities, have become less frequent and harsh, still they have not gone away.

So what do we do? Here are some suggestions:

• Admit our constant comparison is an ugly sin that hurts God’s heart, rejects His love, and dulls the beauty of holiness He desires to light inside each of us.

• Ask God to make us aware of every single glance and thought of comparison as we walk the grocery store, church, and restaurant aisles.

• Speak a simple, repentant prayer every time criticism or coveting arise in your heart as you scroll through social media: “Forgive me, Lord, for thinking myself better than this woman, or less than that woman, desiring what You have not chosen to give me”

• Thank Him that He made you as you are for reasons He knows are best.

• Ask the Creator God who made you to give you His admiration and satisfaction with His intentional design.

In His famous sermon on the mount, Jesus explained that adultery was not only a sin when sex was performed; He took it to the heart by saying, “But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28).

Number 10 on the list of commandments God wrote with His finger on stone tablets was, “You shall not covet … anything that is your neighbor’s” (Exodus 20:17). Wanting, desiring, longing for anything someone else has is a sin of the heart.

Do you desire to please God? Would you like to make Him happy? Here is how to do that in 2025: “Do not look on … appearance … stature … For the LORD sees not as man sees; man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).

Make heart change your resolution for 2025:

• Nuture your marriage (reject selfishness).

• Be still (choose to pause and listen).

• Embrace your body (give thanks for His design).