My New Year's resolution - To lay it down

Photo by Bea Hufman Photography

Lay it down

Every year as December winds to a close and a new calendar gets hung on the wall, my thoughts generally turn inward and contemplative. I think of all that has happened and has yet to come. I start making lists of changes I would like to see in myself, my home and my family.

And come January 1st (or sometimes 3rd or 4th) I try my darnedest to implement them:
- Exfoliate more
- Drink more water
- Read the Bible every day 
- Talk less, listen more
- Hit the gym five days a week
- Take a break from sugar
- Drink fewer calories
- Respect Mr. Steady more
- Remember to send monthly birthday cards
- Tithe more regularly
- Call a friend a day...

And the list goes on and on until I'm already burned out just making it. Is this what God would have of us each year? To be burnt out and feeling guilty before we even begin? Yes, our health is important. Yes, relationships are important. And YES, reading the Word regularly is important. 

But I have a theory. Maybe the solution for the "best-new-year-ever" isn't to make an even bigger list or stronger promise to do or be better... but to LAY. IT. DOWN.

Lay it down.

All of it. The lists, the demands, the quotas and guilt-trips and calendars and rules and fasts and restrictions. Maybe, just maybe - by laying down our resolutions and letting them die a peaceful death - we can rise again and TRULY live. 

Everything I am, everything I long to be
I lay it down at Your feet
Everything I am, everything I long to be
I lay it down at Your feet

I lay it down, I lay it down
I lay it down at Your feet
I lay it down, I lay it down
I lay it down at Your feet

Oh, Pearl of greatest price
No act of sacrifice
Can match the gift of life
I find within Your gaze

Oh, what a sweet exchange
I die to rise again
Lifted up from the grave
Into Your hands of grace

I lay it down, I lay it down
I lay it down at Your feet
I lay it down, lay it down
Lay it down at Your feet

Songwriters
GIBBS, FREDDIE / BROWN, WILLIAM T.

Published by
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.

Read more:  Matt Maher - Lay It Down Lyrics | MetroLyrics 


Happy 2015 dear friends... May this be our most alive yet.

All is grace (and not striving, promising and list-making),
Carie