I haven’t made a New Years resolution in years—maybe ever. I’ve always thought: “Why make a resolution? Just do what you know you’re supposed to do.” Besides that, I’ve known many people who make resolutions but only kept them for a week or two.

That is because people usually resolve to do something they really don’t want to do. Of course, they want the result – being thinner, being stronger, being more knowledgeable – but they don’t want to do what it takes to get there: diet, exercise, and read. Sitting on the sofa, eating chips, and watching TV is much more comfortable. If we actually wanted to diet (rather than lose weight), wanted to work out (rather than be strong), wanted to read (rather than be smart), our resolutions might have more effect.

Even though I have not made New Years resolutions in the past, I am making one this year. I resolve to complain less and continue doing so until I do not complain at all. I think I am a natural complainer. It’s always been easier for me to see what is wrong in a given situation than to see what is right. That inclination, whether instilled by nature or by nurture (or both), makes it easy for me to complain.

I walk out of a church service, thinking the preacher took forty-five minutes to say what he could have said in ten. My wife and I get in the car and before we leave the parking lot, she has commented on the “good sermon.”

Well, I’ve had enough of it. I want to stop complaining – not just because people don’t like to be around complainers (though they don’t), but because I don’t like complaining. And because St. Paul says, “Do all things without grumbling and complaining” (Philippians 2:14). He also said, “And do not grumble, as some of them did—and were killed by the destroying angel” (1 Cor. 10:10-11) I’m not looking over my shoulder for that angel, but grumbling seems like a very unhealthy habit.

So, I’ve resolved to stop it. How am I going to keep that resolution when so many other people fail to keep theirs—many of them stronger and more capable than me?

For one thing, I am going to write my resolution out and keep it where I can see it. Writing does something to us that merely thinking does not. I am going to write my resolution in a similar fashion to the resolutions that a young Jonathon Edwards wrote for himself (http://www.jonathan-edwards.org/Resolutions.html). He prefaced them this way: “Being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God’s help, I do humbly entreat him by his grace to enable me to keep these Resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to his will, for Christ’s sake.”

Over the space of a few months, Edwards wrote 70 resolutions. The first is this: “Resolved, that I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God’s glory, and my own good, profit and pleasure, in the whole of my duration, without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriads of ages hence. Resolved to do whatever I think to be my duty and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. Resolved to do this, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many soever, and how great soever.” The 70^th and final resolution is this: “Let there be something of benevolence, in all that I speak.” 

My resolution is this: “With God’s help, I resolve to complain less and continue doing so until I do not complain at all. When I fail – and realize it – I will confess my failure and stop.”

To make this resolve stick, I will recruit the help of family and friends. I will, for example, ask my wife to point out to me when I am complaining and, if necessary, point out to me when I am attempting to justify my complaint. Perhaps I need a second resolution to listen graciously and gratefully when I am rebuked for complaining.

If you are making a resolution this year, why not punch it up a bit? Write it out and put it where you will see it. When you stop seeing it in that place (which will happen), move it to another place. Then enlist help from people who love you. Ask them to alert you to those times when you go back on your resolution.

As long as you are making a resolution, why not make it stick?