I ran into my friend Steve the Personal Trainer at the gym during the Christmas holiday season. He told me that business has been slow. It always is this time of year. People focused on shopping, holiday partying, and eating are not too interested in lifting weights and doing aerobics.

 

Things wouldn’t stay calm for long, though. Steve forecasted a change. “Life is about to get real busy around here. It always does after the first of the year.”

 

According to Steve, the “New Year’s Resolution crowd” floods the gym beginning in January. January 1 is the customary time when people decide to get fit, get a gym membership, and get in shape. Sometimes the gym is so packed, members have to wait in line to use the treadmills and Nautilus machines. However, by February the enthusiasm wanes slightly. Toward the end of March, only the people who have integrated exercise into their lives remain. That’s the usual pattern.

 

You may know from personal experience how fleeting New Year’s resolutions are. Instead of resolutions, they tend to be more like New Year’s wishes. “I wish I were thinner. I wish I would go back to school. I wish I could stop smoking.”

 

Musician Micah Redding has begun “The Great Adventure.” This coalition of several people has made bold resolutions, and The Great Adventure documents the way these resolutions unfold in the lives of the participants.  Micah is aware of the ephemeral nature of most resolutions. He notes several reasons why resolutions don’t stick. The first problem with most resolutions is that they shoot too low. Lose 10 pounds, exercise a little, stop drinking so much egg-nog. Nobody cares. And so these resolutions are forgotten as quickly and lightly as they are made.”

 

Instead of being determined thoughtful choices, New Year’s resolutions usually evaporate like the morning dew. Perhaps the psychology behind resolution making borders on naïve optimism or premodern magic. “If I want this bad enough, I’m sure it will simply appear.”

 

This type of wishful thinking fails to consider the path that it takes to reach the goal. It makes the egoic assumption that because I want something strongly enough I should have it.

 

However, simply desiring something doesn’t take into consideration whether or not the item is worth having. Nor does it necessarily consider what it will take to obtain the objective. Jesus reminds us, “For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish’” (Luke 14:28-30).

 

The symbolism of a new year makes January 1 a popular time to make resolutions. A new year equals the start of a new you.

 

However, why wait until the first day of the calendar year to make positive life changes? The longer you wait to create the affirmative life patterns, the more difficult it will be for those patterns to emerge.

 

Besides, waiting for an arbitrary day to arrive causes you to live outside the present moment. “Tomorrow I’ll be happy. Next week I’ll eat more vegetables. On New Year’s Day I’ll make a fresh start of things.” As you look forward to another time, you are missing out on this current one.

 

Jesus taught that today is sufficient for its own concerns. Postponing your life until another day causes you to abdicate this day, and it makes you live in the fantasy of your mind instead of the reality of the moment. You suppose that you’ll be resolute on January 1, but why aren’t you resolute today?

 

When you delay living decisively in the present, you abandon your real existence for an imagined one in a pretend world that never arrives. Bestselling author Eckhart Tolle observes, “In other words, you are waiting for an event in time to save you. Is this not the core error that we have been talking about? Salvation is not elsewhere in place or time. It is here and now.” (The Power of Now, p.145).

 

The time to be resolved is now. The time to lose weight, meditate, take guitar lessons, go on a pilgrimage, paint your house, volunteer in an AIDS clinic, start your dream business, or get into Yale is not January 1. It is now. The time to live is only and always right now. This is the perfect moment—not just to start, but to be.

 

Proverbs 13:12 reminds us, “Hope deferred make the heart grow sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” By habitually pushing the commencement of life changes onto January 1, you foster an expectation that never finds fulfillment. You end up with a sick heart waiting for New Years Day to arrive, and once it passes you pine for the next one.

 

In order to make your resolutions stick, resolve now to live grounded in what Tim King describes as “the eternal moment.” He points out, “We all get caught up in future glory and unrealized expectations. We set our sights down the road so far ahead of us that we lose sight of the here and now.” (Furious Pursuit, p. 114). Trying to obtain fulfillment tomorrow is grasping for the wind.

 

If your goal is to write a novel, you must begin by writing the first word. As you click the keyboard, you are writing a novel. You can do that right now. If you’re resolved to love fifteen pounds, you can put down the bag of chips, get off the couch and walk. See, you’ve begun taking the necessary steps. Now is the perfect time to live as you want.

 

Abraham made a resolution to follow the lead of God. So, he struck out when God called him to travel to a land that God would show him. We may assume that Abraham’s goal was to reach the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Yet, settling in a final parcel of real estate wasn’t the objective. God showed Abraham every plot of land through his desert trek. Abraham marched along the caravan routes one step at a time—one moment at a time. He lived in the present dusty moment, and even when he reached Canaan he moved from place to place. Every dry, sandy step symbolized the perfect time to see the God-revealed land.

 

While he hoped for a city whose builder and maker is God, Abraham realized that each moment along the way was special, important, and inspired. Abraham discovered that the only “final destination” is each present instant, and each moment opens its way to the next. Alan Jones observes, “We are brought to what we think is the end of the road only to find that a new path opens up in front of us” (The Passion for Pilgrimage, p.53).

 

If you are inclined to make resolutions—whether they seem big, small, or somewhere in between—make them. Make them today, and live them now. Let today serve as New Years Day, and let each step you take in life’s journey be the perfect time to experience the land that God has showed you.

 

Kevin Beck is COO of Presence International and author of This Book Will Change Your World. He is married to Alisa, and they live in Colorado Springs with their three electrifying children.

 

URL: http://www.presence.tv/cms/pers_the-perfect-time.php

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