Forget The “Do-Overs”–Find New Mercies Instead

The New Year: a robust NO to “do-overs:” and YES to new mercies.

It’s the New Year, and it does seem the ideal time for the annual “do-overs,” that oft-repeated phrase that floats above many children’s games.

We have reached year-end once more. And once more, it has been a tough year for many of the people I love and for the billions whose lives are remote from mine. In our connected world, their suffering and pain affect me as well.

Like many, I want next year to be better. And so, I clean out closets and drawers, discard neglected emails, and toss unwanted stuff. I resolve to do better, to write more, to waste less time, to finally get fit (ha!!).

But most resolutions fail within a few weeks, if not in a few hours. We cannot reinvent ourselves like this—our habits are deep, the mysteries and genetics behind them prove difficult to explore and highly resistant to change.

However, there is a different path to the lasting “do-overs.”

One of my favorite scriptures is Lamentations 3:22-23. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

How I love that idea, “mercies, new every morning.”

Every morning.

So when I am at my best, I make one resolution: “Take the time to acknowledge those new mercies every single day.”

Over the years, I’ve learned that rejoicing each morning in this newness of freshly bestowed mercies is a far more critical task than “make myself better than ever” type resolutions, especially the “exercise more and lose weight” ones.

I’ve also learned that I’m amazingly adept at blocking the experiences of those new mercies.

After a lot of self-examination, I’ve come up with five practices that effectively block my reception of the new mercies coming my way.

Number one: I look for the strings or unexpressed expectations when receiving this gift of new mercies.

This attitude removes any hope of heartfelt thankfulness and blinds me to grace. I have had to learn receive the gifts given by God and others with thankfulness and without suspicion. Should there be a string attached, that is the giver’s problem, not mine. And if I am giving gifts with strings attached, then I am the problem, the reason for the blocked mercies.

Receive simply. Give simply. These are real “do-overs!”

Number two: I let others make my important decisions.

Too often, I’ve said phrases that sound something like, “I can’t do that [live with complete integrity, be truthful, offer generosity to all, say and practice a strong “no” to injustice, etc.] because someone else will [not like it, get mad at me, not respond the way I want them to, etc.].”

Those words indicate that I have given to others the power to make my vital choices. This is the path to death, spiritual, emotional, and physical death.

Instead, I must reject these death decisions and choose life, owning my soul and my actions, blaming no one.

Number three: I seek security instead of mercy and holiness.

Most of us look for security in all sorts of human institutions, including church, family, economics and politics. But we will not find it in those places or anywhere else. When I make security the primary driver of life, I immediately move to the worship of money and things. I then become resistant to God, to change, to new mercies, and to the needs of others. Fear shuts me down.

The solution? Stop chasing security. Start chasing holiness.

Number four: My tendency to think that I am the center of the universe and that what happens to me is more important than what happens to others.

I know too well where this one comes from: the flawed idea that God stands ready to do my bidding if I pray hard enough. Subtly, I have this sense that I can order God around. The truth: God is not my personal celestial vending machine or Santa in another form.

The world does not revolve around me. Never has. Never will.

Number five: Holding onto the fallacy that if I understand enough about why something happens, I can find meaning in random events.

It simply is not true. I’m not saying any of us should relinquish intellectual curiosity or scientific endeavor, but instead recognize that there will always be a mystery far beyond my individual or our collective comprehension.

When I appreciate the wildness of mystery rather than insisting on domesticating or taming it, I open my soul to those new mercies. No matter how hard I try, I cannot tame the world any more than I can tame the endless ocean waves; I can only learn to ride them, knowing that at some point, I will be knocked over. And in that falling, I can land in the arms of grace—and those new mercies.

This is true lightness, true freedom, the true “do over.”

This one is worth a try.