Category — Featured

This time of year, the Internet is overflowing with articles and tools designed to help people break old habits and embrace new ones. From fitness tips and calorie trackers to budgeting programs, reading plans, DIY projects and self-help guides, they all share one aim: to foster positive change.

Most Americans enter into the first weeks of the year full of enthusiasm, proudly proclaiming their New Year’s Resolutions. I will admit that I’m no exception. In addition to reading through the Bible in one year (something I have done previously and enjoyed), I intend to work out at least 5 days/week with the goal of building muscle, improving my cardiovascular strength, and (of course) losing 10 pounds.

As I thought about ways to increase my chances of long-term success, I started to consider the root of the word “resolution.” When we make a resolution, we resolve to do something, what does that really mean?

Random House Dictionary defines the term resolve as, “to come to a definite or earnest decision about; determine (to do something).” Those words are key — definite, earnest, determine(d). There’s no ambiguity there. When we resolve to do something, we are serious.

In addition, the dictionary includes two more definitions that I believe are worth noting:

• to reduce or convert by, or as by, breaking up or disintegration (usually fol. by to or into ).
• to convert or transform by any process (often used reflexively).

Making a resolution is a transformative process — we are breaking with the status quo and converting to a new system (whether that is following a healthy eating plan, using Quickbooks for accounting, or allocating 10 minutes each morning to prayer).  When we make a New Year’s Resolution, the ultimate goal is to be transformed.

“Resolution” also shares the same root as “resolute,” which means to be firmly resolved or determined; set in purpose or opinion. Again, we are firm in our convictions and set on a path toward positive change. When we make a resolution, we should be unshakeable.

With the Christmas season having just passed, I am reminded of the resolve demonstrated by Joseph, perhaps one of the greatest unsung heroes of scripture. While traveling with his young fiancee, Joseph is presented with a difficult and very emotional choice:

…Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:18-21)

Bear in mind that in Joseph’s day and age, Mary could have been stoned to death had she been found to be pregnant out of wedlock. Stoned to death. Her life was literally in his hands. What’s more, Joseph could have been cast out of society for choosing to stay with her — and here an angel was telling him to take Mary as his wife and accept the child as his own?

Think about the magnitude of that decision. Think about the conviction it takes to accept that burden — to take that risk — and walk in obedience. Joseph demonstrates this kind of resolve:

When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus. (Matthew 1:24-25, emphasis mine.)

Joseph made the ultimate New Year’s Resolution: he resolved to trust God. After Jesus was born, Joseph was again visited by an angel of the Lord, first telling him when to flee with his family to Egypt, and later telling him when to return to Israel. Each time, without hesitation, Joseph obeyed. He was set in his opinion that God is trustworthy. He was earnest in his decision to follow God’s directives, and because of his resolve, his life and the future of all mankind was transformed.

This year, as you write down your resolutions, I encourage you to put God on the list. Make a commitment to spend some time with the Lord, getting to know Him and asking for guidance.  Jesus tells His followers, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” (Matthew 7:7-8)

Resolve to ask, seek and knock this year. I promise, you will be transformed.

Today marks one year since my father passed away. He was only 65, and died of a stealthy cancer that had already taken up camp in his body months before it was finally recognized.

My dad was angry about this, and felt robbed of the comfortable retirement he had neatly planned out. After four decades of teaching at the university level, he was looking forward to taking the first of many ocean cruises with his wife of 28 years, Regina. Instead, he made his first of many visits to the hospital for bloodwork and PET scans and chemotherapy treatments intended to ward off his disease.

I miss my dad with a deep ache in my heart. But I am deeply blessed by the time we spent together during the last year of his life, and the knowledge that we became closer and loved one another more than we ever had before.

You see, my father was something of a stoic. He raised me as a single parent for 11 years before he remarried, and although he loved me deeply, he wasn’t one for outpourings of affection. We were more like roommates, each going about our daily routine and carrying our weight in keeping up the household. He was also a strict disciplinarian, especially when it came to academics, and as a child I regarded him with equal parts adoration and fear.

More importantly, my father was an atheist. And, despite all his best efforts to teach me to be a “free thinker”, I became a born again Christian at age 34.

We never talked about religion, except once several years prior, when I was attending Catholic church. Having never been taught about God at all, Catholicism was a comfortable stepping stone in my journey of faith. It was also anathema to my father, who was raised Jewish and — although he was a theology minor in college — later chose to abstain from any religious doctrine or belief in a higher power. The conversation was laughable, like a child at her First Communion trying to explain the precepts of faith to a Ph.D., when she had only encountered a feltboard Jesus.

We never discussed religion after I was born again, and left the Catholic church in New York for a pentecostal congregation in Dallas, Texas. We never talked about what it meant for me to accept Jesus into my heart, or how the Holy Spirit truly transformed me from the inside out, softening the hard edges and filling me with joy, faith and compassion.

But he saw it.

I flew to North Carolina to visit my father several times during the last two years of his life, knowing — if only in theory — that our time together was suddenly limited. And, although I never witnessed to him or shared the gospel in conversation, I lived it. I demonstrated Christ’s love to him in every way I knew how, which sometimes meant just being there to encourage him with my companionship. I asked him to tell me stories about his accomplishments in high school and college, and I helped him organize the myriad photos, awards and papers that would mark his legacy. I assured him that my husband and I were happy in our marriage and financially secure — two things that mattered deeply to him.

And I told him that I loved him. Whenever I came to visit, and whenever we talked on the phone, I made sure to tell him — and as time went on, I felt it deeper and deeper in my heart. Despite the battles of my youth and our divergent worldviews in my adulthood, I respected and appreciated my father more than ever. Nothing could take away the pain and bitterness of his sickness, but he knew that he was loved, and there is no greater balm.

My husband Craig put together this wonderful video tribute to my father’s life to play at his memorial. I’m adding it here to honor him.

I love you, dad.

[media id=1]

Dr. Jay Rosenberg
1942 – 2008