It’s the first day of the Year of the Tiger. And a chance for a fresh start with my New Year’s Resolution. I will get a third chance at Losar (Tibetan New Year) next month.
Why is it so hard to do what my head and heart both want to do anyhow?
My 2022 resolution
My 2022 resolution has the potential to increase my productivity no end.
It is this: In 2022, I will ‘pray my distractions’.
My distractions are usually to be found in the kitchen and on electronic gadgets. In the kitchen, the kettle, coffee percolator, fridge and pantry lure me, and not just at mealtimes. On the phone or iPad, I can often be found checking the news or scanning social media or looking at one of the six apps I use to stay connected with different groups of people. Yes … I regularly use six different platforms for communicating with people, in addition to telephone calls and emails. I am, after all, a modern woman.
Hence deciding to ‘pray my distractions’.
I can’t claim credit for the concept. As I prepared for a particular talk early in 2022, I read a fabulous article written by a local Christian leader here in Melbourne who ‘prays his distractions.’ His distractions seem more ‘grown-up’ than mine, though no doubt there is a deeper root to my apparent inability to focus on the tasks which I am avoiding through such distractions.
“I try to turn my distractions into prayers. For my distractions are usually my worries or fears. The best thing to do is to pray them.”
Reverend Peter Adam, https://au.thegospelcoalition.org/article/are-you-practising-the-presence-of-god/ Nov 2020
Why is it so hard to stick to our resolutions?
Just this evening, before sitting down to write this blog post, I stood in front of my fabulous pantry. (It’s fabulous because it was only built a few months ago and the novelty has not yet worn off.)
I reached for the chocolate.
Although there is nothing wrong with enjoying a special treat now and then, the main reason I was nibbling was to avoid doing what I wanted to do anyhow … to write a blog post. Isn’t that madness?
And no, I did not pray my distraction. I forgot.
But I sure enjoyed the chocolate.
It is easy to become discouraged. Yet I remind myself that I’m in good company. Even the great apostle Paul struggled.
So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched person I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
Romans 7:21-25 NIV
Hope
As Christians, we live in an stage of ‘now and not yet’. Jesus has delivered me from the power of sin, and yet still I struggle for I am flesh-and-blood-human. Struggle is normal. Life isn’t meant to be easy.
Let me say it again. This is a truth I know yet need reminding of as I start afresh with my New Years Resolution for 2022.
Struggle is normal. Life isn’t meant to be easy.
That sounds pessimistic, but it is true. The Bible teaches clearly that there is a cosmic battle between the powers of Light and the powers of Darkness. We are caught up in that battle, whether we like it or not.
But there is hope. A certain hope. A hope which keeps us going through the difficulties.
And so I start again. Praying my distractions, that is.
The Year of the Tiger
Today is the first day of the Year of the Tiger. I wonder what it will hold?
Perhaps it will be the year in which the pandemic will fizzle out? Am I dreaming?
Will it be a year in which we become perfect? That time will come for each of us, when “… what is mortal may be swallowed up by life” (2 Corinthians 5:4 NIV). However, I don’t expect that will happen for me in 2022 … I have plenty more living to do in this easily distracted state yet.
The Year of the Tiger will most likely be a year of ongoing struggle in one form or another. And that is as it should be. For we are still living in a broken world, even though we are marked with God’s Spirit, partnering with him in his work, and full of hope for eternity with God.
But lest you think I’m overly negative, let me add that I expect that 2022 will also involve chocolate and laughter and friendships and more. I thoroughly enjoy life. The struggles are annoying but they don’t sap my joy.
Happy Chinese New Year!
