New Year's resolution: Be the person you are right now
We get taught in the church that we need to be someone else. But here's a different idea.
I recently saw the results of a Forbes poll, that asked people about their resolutions for the new year. The most common resolutions, in order, were:
Improved fitness
Improved finances
Improved mental health
Lose weight
Improved diet
A few others showed up further down the list, like “learn a new skill,” “travel more,” or very far down the list, “perform better at work.”
Most people won’t follow through, of course. That’s the ritual of New Year’s resolutions: we decide on someone else we want to be, and then we give up on the resolution when we end up, against all odds, still being the same person we were before.
This hits a soft spot for me, because I have believed for a long time that my salvation and exaltation hinge on me being a different person than I am. That’s a difficult concept to swallow; it engenders the sort of scrupulosity and toxic perfectionism we see everywhere in the church right now. And yet, our gospel teaching is replete with examples of how we need to stop being ourselves, and start being someone else:
King Benjamin taught us to “put off the natural man”
Mosiah teaches that we need to become “new creatures,” if we hope to inherit the kingdom of God
Jesus tells Nicodemus he must be “born again”
Paul taught the Ephesians that you must “put off… the old man” and “put on the new man”
Paul also talks to the Corinthians about becoming a “new creature,” specifically calling out that the old must “pass away”
Etc., etc.
If you’ve ever felt like you’re not good enough, because the natural man or woman still lives in you, you’re not alone.
But there’s a misunderstanding here, and it’s something I’m only barely beginning to learn. The problem is that we take this injunction to be a new creature as instruction to simply become someone who is sinless. And that’s not going to happen! No matter how much we make a resolution to be someone different—someone who doesn’t sin—we’ll slip back into being our normal, mortal, human selves. And if we see our normal selves as bad, then this can be very, very frustrating. Nothing is worse than opening the scriptures and being constantly reminded, “you’re doing it wrong.”
Richard Rohr, on the other hand, teaches that instead of avoiding sin, the idea of becoming a “new” man or woman is about transformation. Avoiding mistakes and wrongdoing will not save us, and if we were somehow able to remain sinless it would rob us of badly needed opportunities to grow spiritually. It’s a counter-intuitive idea: “We come to God by doing it wrong instead of doing it right.”
You first have to do it wrong and experience forgiveness. Isn’t that what the story the prodigal son teaches us? He does it wrong, but he comes back to the father…
Most of the stories in the New Testament are healing. Why didn’t that blow us away? We thought to be a good Catholic [or Latter-day Saint] was not to need healing because you hadn’t sinned.
Mike Petrow adds that “the growth and the transformation takes place is in the doing it wrong.” This supports the idea that this life is not a test, but rather an education. We all have things to learn, and the trials and mistakes of this life are what we will learn them from.
It’s not a license to sin, in flagrante delicto in the eyes of God, and throw commandments out the window. But it’s the realization that we will sin, no matter how hard we try to avoid it (and we have to try, that’s part of the equation), and that only through these sins can we be healed by our Savior, Jesus Christ. This gives me some hope that I can be myself, and still qualify someday for celestial glory.
“Someday” feels like the right timing, doesn’t it? Transformation requires time and accumulation of experiences; it’s not something we can just do. Or resolve to do on our own, and on our own timeline. Melissa P. Larson emphasizes that becoming new creatures is not something that’s even in our hands at all, but something that only divine hands can do:
When we are in the midst of transformation, we may feel as if we are being broken down—much like the butterfly in its cocoon—but the Savior will help build us up again and make us new creatures, if we let him…
By relying on the strength and comfort that our Savior offers us, we can move through transformational experiences with greater patience, peace, and confidence. The Savior assured us, “In me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”
Terryl Givens seems to agree that mistakes don’t disqualify us from exaltation, but instead qualify us for healing. He paints a picture of the final judgment that is more hopeful than what we’ve come to understand:
Christ will be our witness, not in a tribunal or a court where we need defending. But in a setting in which He wants to celebrate those efforts that we have made to be His disciples and to witness of Him…
[It is] a different way to think about judgment. And I think it’s in line with what Elder Uchtdorf has taught about judgment: “That day of judgment will be a day of mercy and love — a day when broken hearts are healed, when tears of grief are replaced with tears of gratitude, when all will be made right.”…
The justice we are familiar with, that we see in our courts of law, is fixated on the past, and love is open to the possibilities of the future.
The word “judgment” conjures a certain image in our lessons and talks in the church, one where our sins are seen in broad daylight and punishment is administered, but what Brother Givens describes fits with the character of the loving God I know.
You may decide that you want to be a skinnier person this year, or someone who spends less money. I hope you’re successful in whatever you undertake. But if, after a few months, you find that you’re still the same person, I hope you’re okay with that.
I’m learning that the most powerful thing I can do in this new year is lean into being the person I already am. Not because I’m perfect, but because I’m decidedly not. Owning the fact that I make mistakes without spiraling into guilt is going to be a challenge, but those mistakes are part of the plan. I’m the person I’m supposed to be, and you’re the person you’re supposed to be.
And loving Heavenly Parents made us both the way we are.