New Year’s resolutions are often blown off or forgotten by the middle of January each year. But thriving in our faith and living abundantly means doing things differently. Let’s look at what this means.

When we make a resolution, we often do so without having the tools we need to be successful.  However, when we begin from a position of our faith, we allow for our spiritual tools (prayer, scripture, meditation, etc.) to support the accomplishment of our plans and goals.

Another aspect of resolutions is that we often set them with arbitrary, faulty, societal standards.  Living our lives, not by the world’s standards, but through our faith, allows us to be free from setting standards and simply living by the ones established by our Creator. Living by our Creator’s standards also brings promises. John 10:10 shares a promise with us that Jesus came to give us life, and that life would be abundant. Our faith helps us to believe in this statement. Our hope keeps us focused on this statement.

But what is abundant living? It is living engulfed within God’s love, the very love that created us. Abundant life is being content with who you are and whose you are. It is living life in all its fullness, not as the world defines it, but as Christ defines it.

Finally, we often set resolutions without fully knowing why. But the why of our faith is to have a deeper relationship with our Creator. This relationship is a foundation that will sustain us in good and even in turbulent times. Our faith allows us to have peace even when things don’t go as we may have hoped.

So, when we look at the time we would have spent setting a resolution, we realize that precious time would have been wasted. But our faith assures us that none of our time is ever wasted in Christ. Choose to live deeper in Him this year, and abundant life will come, even without a list of resolutions. ■