I hate New Year’s resolutions. Really. I decided years ago to never make any. I’m sure that most of the reason for this is that I’m a major screw-up. I can’t think of a single resolution I’ve ever made that I kept.
I know that to some of you, this is a hopelessly defeatist attitude. I assure you that it is necessary for my survival and my sanity (what little I have left).
The problem is that I’m a sprinter*. If you need something done in two days, I can do it. If you need something done next month, it just might be late. In biblical terms, I’m a sacrificer, I’m not obedient.
In I Samuel 15, Saul is commanded to destroy the Amalekites; all of them and their animals. When Saul shows up with Agag, the king, and the best of the Amalekites’ animals, he says, “I have carried out the Lord’s instructions!.” Samuel answers with what may be the first recorded instance of sarcasm in scripture, “What then is this bleating of sheep in my ears? What is this lowing of cattle that I hear?” Saul comes back with the old “I was doing it for God” excuse and explains how they killed everyone but the king and how they brought back only the best animals so they could sacrifice them to God.
Samuel responds with the death knell of Saul’s short-lived dynasty:
“Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD?
To obey is better than sacrifice,
and to heed is better than the fat of rams.
For rebellion is like the sin of divination,
and arrogance like the evil of idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the LORD,
he has rejected you as king.”
This theme is repeated by David in Psalm 51 where he says in 16 and 17, “You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”
I can’t read these passages without thinking of all the sacrifices I still make for God: my time, life, health, money, family and self. But I’m not obedient.
That is what I want to be: obedient. And I don’t want to do it this year, I want to do it forever.
*No laughing!!
