Jody Serey’s Reflection

A Different Kind of Resolution

We come to church carrying many things—gratitude, worry, fatigue, hope. Some of what we carry is easy to name, and some of it we barely understand ourselves. Faith does not ask us to arrive polished or certain. It asks only that we arrive—present, honest, and willing to listen for God in the middle of our ordinary lives.

The first week of January is a season of resolve. We tell ourselves that this will be the year we finally keep our promises to ourselves—eat better, weigh less, quit something, start something, become a more disciplined version of who we already are. And then, quietly and almost predictably, many of those resolutions fall away within a couple of weeks.

Perhaps the problem is not our lack of willpower, but the narrowness of what we resolve to change.

The Christian life has never been meant to be a checklist of behaviors to avoid. It is, at its heart, an invitation to follow a person. When Jesus called his disciples, he did not begin with a list of rules. He said simply, “Follow me.” He offered himself as a model—of compassion, courage, attentiveness, mercy, forgiveness, and love.

What if, this year, our resolution was not about fixing ourselves, but about making Jesus more central in the way we move through our days? That kind of resolution does not begin with “don’t.” It begins with “do.”

Do notice the people who are usually overlooked. The marginalized, the ones who are different. The ones who no longer seem to matter to the rest of society.

Do practice generosity—of time, patience, and forgiveness.

Do speak truth with kindness. Kindness always matters.

Do choose love when it would be easier to choose bitterness, or indifference.

Living a good life is more than losing weight or breaking a habit. It is about forming a heart that reflects Christ’s. It is about asking, again and again, What would it look like to respond here as Jesus might? Not perfectly—but faithfully.

And when we stumble—as we inevitably will—that, too, becomes part of the journey. The Christian life is not about never falling short; it is about learning how to stand back up and return. Each day offers a fresh beginning. Each misstep becomes an invitation not to shame, but to practice grace, again and again.