Yesterday, I took part in a panel discussion at church about “resetting” for the New Year. We talked about some of the rituals and systems we use to try and get ourselves for the New Year.

It was fun to talk about my journals and such, and some of my approach to this season of the year, but I was left wondering if anyone “got it”.

At one point I said from the stage, “If you don’t expect anything more out of 2014 than what you did in 2014, I’d challenge you to examine what you expect out of your faith.” 

Do people really believe in transformation?

Do you?

Do you believe you can change?

Do you believe you’re called to?

I think it actually boils down to some very basic beliefs, so let me ask you:

• In John 4, Jesus says that he offers water that will become a spring of water that bubbles up (inside us) into eternal life…
• In 1 Corinthians 2, Paul says that we have the mind of Christ…

Were they liars? 

Were they only talking to “super-Christians”? 

As one of my spiritual mentors says, “Either it is, or it isn’t.” 

So, if Jesus and Paul knew something about life; if they really meant what they said, then we are left to wrestle with their statements.

The burden is on us.

Question 1: Do you want to have the mind of Christ? to have a constant stream of living water inside you? 

Question 2: What are you prepared to surrender in order to gain it? 

This is the point where many of us get snagged, if for no reason than this: we have our lives, our systems of existence, and we don’t like to think that they maybe aren’t working. 

So where do we start?

We start with humility. We start with the admission that we actually don’t know what’s best for us. We declare as best we can, “I believe that there’s something more for me, but my life isn’t set up to obtain it. God help me.”

He wants to.

Someone asked a desert hermit once, “What is the way to make progress?” The hermit answered, “Humility. The more we bend ourselves to humility, the more we are lifted up to make progress.”

Humility declares, “I don’t know the way.”

Humility opens the door to learning. To growth. 

Humility says, “There must be more, and I am open to it.”

Humility says, “I cannot save myself.”

(By the way, humility is not merely self-deprecating or a way for us to belittle ourselves; it is a way to open ourselves up to growth and change. Feeling sorry for ourselves can actually merely be another way to be arrogant and self-centered. True humility is accompanied by a desire and willingness to change, to move, to reconsider.)

So, as 2013 begins, where are you with humility? Have you figured it all out, or are you still willing to acknowledge that you need to make more “progress”?

If you’re still learning, still growing, still changing, what are you doing to continue to learn and grow this year?