Beyond Willpower Fatigue

I’m writing this devotion at the beginning of the year; you know, when people make resolutions. Experts say every year we start off with the same intentions: lose weight, exercise more, quit smoking or drinking (or whatever your compulsive issue is), and the result is usually the same, too: abject failure after a period of slip-sliding between intention and reality. Then the despondency sets in. We discover, with Paul, that we just can’t get it together. Psychology even gives us a label for it: willpower fatigue. And the temptation is to disengage and look for an easier life, which, by the way, probably doesn’t exist.

But thanks be to God that life with God is not dependent on how well we get it together this year or any other year. Even when life feels like a battle that we simply cannot win, the good news is that in the end God hands us the victory. And in that good news, we can find the courage to keep going-Finns call it sisu, tenacity, mettle, perseverance, steadfastness, stubborn resolve, persistence. Whatever you call it, it is born out of the knowledge that we play on the winning team-God’s.

Thank you, Lord, that whatever our history of failure or defeat, today we can begin again, confident in Jesus' victory. Amen. — CN