Resolving to Make This Our Best Year Yet

Welcome to the Unwrapping Rest podcast, where I encourage frazzled women to break free from striving and unwrap God’s gift of rest.

I’m Dawn Tolbert, your host, and I’m so glad you’re here.

Welcome to Episode 3: Resolving to Make This Our Best Year Yet.

American essayist and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson once said:

“Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.”

As we stand at the beginning of a brand-new year, it’s easy to embrace that kind of can-do spirit.

We decide—or dare I say, resolve—to make this our best year yet.

Apparently, we think that because the clock turns from 11:59 to midnight, we’ll suddenly become better versions of ourselves.

We’ll be more committed to our health.

We’ll focus more on learning and creativity.

We’ll excel at our jobs.

This will be the year we pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps.

Then one cold January day turns into another.

We oversleep and miss our morning workout.

We order pizza because it’s easier than cooking a healthy meal.

We watch television instead of writing, reading, or painting.

Before long, our shiny new year is covered with greasy fingerprints, and every attempt to polish it only leaves more streaks behind.

We become discouraged.

Disappointed.

We feel like we’ve let ourselves down again.

Maybe we tell ourselves we’ll try again next week.

Or next month.

Or maybe next year.

Or perhaps we simply decide, “This is just who I am.”

Soon we’re stressed, frazzled, and deeply dissatisfied.

Even our beautiful new planners aren’t enough to carry us to victory.

Does any part of that cycle sound familiar?

It certainly does to me.

I’m an overachiever who reaches one goal only to move the finish line farther away.

I should have done more.

Been better.

Not gotten tired so quickly.

The judgments pile up until I want to scream into the night that I’m just so tired.

But then another thought comes.

Shouldn’t I already be asleep if I really had everything together?

And the cycle continues.

Here’s the good news.

This doesn’t have to be our story.

It’s not about finding the perfect energy drink, the right vitamins, or the best productivity book.

It’s about taking the next important step on our journey toward rest.

Last time, we looked at the R in R.E.S.T.

It reminds us to Realize our need for God and recognize that He is inviting us into relationship with Him.

Today we come to the E.

It reminds us to Evaluate our circumstances by the eternal.

As we begin this new year, we can listen to the wisdom of Ecclesiastes and develop an “above-the-sun” perspective.

When we begin viewing our lives from God’s point of view, we discover that this life—and all the goals we’re trying so hard to accomplish—is not all there is.

God invites us to turn our attention away from the pressures that bind us and toward Him.

Through faith in Jesus, He welcomes us into relationship with Himself.

He longs to exchange our striving and anxiety for rest and peace.

Not the kind of rest that comes from collapsing on the couch and shutting down.

But a deep, abiding rest that surpasses understanding.

It’s the peace that allows believers in the middle of unimaginable hardship to continue worshipping God.

It’s the peace that carries us into operating rooms and chemotherapy treatment bays.

It’s the assurance that we are seen, loved, and ultimately safe in God’s hands, even when life feels uncertain.

Listen to the words Paul wrote in Philippians 4:

“Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Paul isn’t offering self-help.

Neither am I.

We cannot save ourselves.

That’s why Christ came.

He lived the perfect life we never could, died for our sins, and rose again so that everyone who trusts Him might receive peace, joy, victory, and rest.

So this year, I encourage you to follow Paul’s example.

Rather than over-planning, choose rejoicing.

Rather than endless resolutions, choose reasonableness.

Trade anxiety for thanksgiving and dependence on God.

Fill your mind with whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, and worthy of praise.

As you do, your heart will naturally turn toward the One who is faithful and true.

Toward Jesus.

This year, my prayer comes from a Zach Williams song:

“Lord, let me be a little more like Jesus, a little less like me.”

I’d love to hear what you’re trusting God for this year.

Send me an email or leave a comment.

I’d be honored to pray for you.

Until next time, I wish you a wonderful New Year as we walk closer with Jesus and become a little more like Him every day.