Resolution or Solution 3 ~ by Lynn Moser

Resolution or Solution 3

Last year on Twitter, someone suggested that “rather than making New Year’s Resolutions, we can choose to create New Year’s Solutions.”

That made me stop and think. What is the difference between a resolution and a solution? So, I looked up the definitions.

The dictionaries say that resolution is a formal expression of opinion or intention made. It comes from the word resolute, which means to be resolved or determined on a course of action, set in purpose or opinion.

Solution, on the other hand, means the act of solving a problem or question, an answer.

Only a small percentage of New Year’s resolutions see fulfillment, a humorous dichotomy, given its definition. Initially, most of them are launched with great intentions but slowly, or sometimes quickly, run out of steam.

Determination slides by the wayside. With little acting upon the problem or circumstance, the intended outcome is not accomplished. This is why I’ve never really made any New Year’s resolutions. I knew I would never keep them.

While solution infers the act of doing something, most people just have the solution compartmentalized in their heads or written down on paper. Wanting to change a situation or something about oneself and coming up with a solution to solve or improve it is still not the answer. Just because I WANT something to change and may be determined for it to be so doesn’t mean it WILL change.

I need more than a resolution, more than a solution. While both executed together are preferable, they must be backed with something more…they need to be backed by actual action. Therefore, the meaning of this scripture takes on a new meaning, “A threefold cord is not quickly broken.” (Eccl. 4:12b NKJV)

I think I’ve come up with my action, which is my theme for this year. I’ve borrowed it from an old hymn…I Surrender All!

All to Jesus I surrender, All to Him I freely give;

I will ever love and trust Him, In His presence daily live.

I surrender all, I surrender all;

All to Thee, my blessed Saviour, I surrender all.

If I surrender all, then I cannot be a hindrance to the Lord’s plans and purposes for my life. If I do not surrender all, I allow my life to be filled with the same old things from the year now passing.

God said through Isaiah, “Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; Shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” (Is. 43:19 NKJV)

What exactly do I want in the New Year? Or more importantly, what does the Lord want for me and from me? How do I embark on an action if I have my fingers tightly clenched around all the events of the old year? Do I really want a new thing to happen in my life?

If I desire the best for my life, I must, as the saying goes, let go and let God! I must…surrender all!

Do you desire God to do a new thing in your life this year? Are you dragging all the hurts, sins, regrets, failures, disappointments, and unforgiveness of the old year behind you in a little red wagon or perhaps a U-haul?

Let this year be a year of release. Take action! Surrender it all!

New Year’s blessings,

Lynn

Lynn Mosher loves to dig into God’s Word and treasure hunts for golden nuggets along the road Home. Lynn lives with her hubby (since 1966) in their Kentucky nest, emptied now of three kidlets and embracing three giggly grand-chicklets. Her greatest passion is to share those nuggets in her devotionals and inspirational stories, fulfilling God’s call on her life to encourage others and glorify the Lord. Lynn writes monthly for several sites and bi-weekly at her online residence, Heading Home. 

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I'VE GOT THIS

by Cynthia Ruchti

I know I'm not alone.  When the author copies of my latest release arrived today, my first reaction was joy, immediately followed by brokenness, humility, on-my-knees gratitude and pleading for God to use the book, give it wings, propel it to the readers for whom the story was written.

Most of that day, I wavered between that internal dance an author knows when they see a book in print, in hand and that blown-off-my-raft sense of the enormity of this amazing process in which I'm privileged to participate.

This isn't my first novel. Not my first book. Not my first rodeo (if I wrote about rodeos). I got this. Right?

No. I don't. None of us do.

I had the idea, didn't I? No, even that was God.

Well, I wrote the story. Not alone.

I came up with those clever turns of phrases. No, I participated in the creative process.

It took hard work, but I fixed what the editor suggested. After much prayer.

I need Him every hour. Every moment. Every stage. At every turn. I don't have this. He does. What I have is Him.

I need Him, oh I need Him. Every hour I need Him.

He's the one who wakes an author in the middle of the night with a thought He planted in the subconscious. He's the one who implants an empathy for crises we've not experienced ourselves. He's the one who DOES something with our words, breathing life into them as poignantly as the Father breathed life into Adam, as transformational as Jesus' first breath in the tomb in which He didn't belong.

Ask the author who's been at this far longer than I have. The thought remains. We will fail if we say, "I've got this." We will see His blessing unfold if we say, "He's got this…and I'm with Him."



Cynthia Ruchti tells stories of Hope-that-glows-in-the-dark through her novels, novellas, devotions, nonfiction and speaking events for women and writers. Her latest release--All My Belongings (Abingdon Press Fiction)--launches on May 6th. She needs Him every hour, for every book, and every breath.

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