In 2026, we don’t just start a new year, but a new quarter century. Yikes! The 21st century is now officially 25% behind us. As usual, many of us will make resolutions. According to statista.com, the top ones in the US are exercising more, saving more money, and eating more healthily. In other words, we want to feel better and more secure. These are good things, but focused primarily on ourselves and our bodies. We want to avoid health problems and financial anxieties. Fair enough. We want to look better and feel better.
Feeling Better
Since I’m a psychologist, let’s focus on feeling better. What do we mean by this? Physically, we like the sense of energy and strength when our bodies feel good. But what of emotions? Many of us are racked with emotional pain from anxiety, depression and listlessness. It is natural, then, to want to feel “better” by experiencing less unpleasant emotion.
This type of thinking comes from our therapeutic era where life is focused on minimizing bad feelings. We turn to emotional support animals, weighted blankets, fidget devices, and even spirituality – all with the goal of not feeling so anxious or sad. Even Christians can be caught up in this therapeutic focus, with sermons, Bible studies, and fellowship groups aiming to make us feel better. I want to be careful here: clearly much in the Bible is intended to comfort us, and we would not minimize that at all. But often we view God as Santa Claus, giving us good things to make us feel better with our obligation only being to be relatively nice.
But here is the problem. Probably no society in history has been as comfortable as ours. We have tamed the climate with heating and air conditioning. Most of us have plenty of food, choosing what to eat rather than wondering if we will find anything to eat at all. We can travel freely and fairly safely. Relatively few of us earn our livings with raw physical labor. We have magical devices all around us to distract us – like cell phones and hundred of channels and sources for video entertainment. When I began my career, I would never have imagined I could sit at my desk and counsel people all around the country over a thing called the Internet. We struggle to find gifts for loved ones because we can’t think of anything they actually need.
Feeling Better May Not Be Enough
What is going on? Why, in such a time of convenience and affluence, do so many long to feel better? There are numerous answers to that question but let me focus on one. It shocked me when I read the following as the first lines from Hayes, Strosahl, and Wilson in their (2012) text on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (p. 3): “Noting external ensures freedom from suffering. Even when we human beings possess all the things we typically use to gauge external success – great looks, loving parents, terrific children, financial security, a caring spouse – it may not be enough. Humans can be warm, well fed, dry, physically well – and still be miserable” (italics in the original). Why? Much of the mental health literature mimics the medical, defining health as the lack of disease. But in the realm of the psychological, there is more to it. Even as the DSM has mushroomed by adding numerous new mental illnesses, relatively little research has gone into what actually makes people satisfied, fulfilled, and at peace.
Let’s relate this to our topic of resolutions: most of our resolutions may decrease our suffering but won’t likely make us fulfilled or content. It is a lie to think we can escape suffering. Not that we go around asking for it, but it will find us in one form or another: physical ailments, broken and disappointing relationships, tragic loss or injury, financial collapse. No resolution can keep us from suffering. And while we try to minimize our pain, we join with Freddy Mercury in singing, “There must be more to life than this.” Life must have meaning or it will let us down.
Moving Toward Meaning
This is particularly poignant for Christians. When believers buy into a therapeutic gospel, they are trained to believe that God exists only to make us feel good and to solve our problems. When this “you can be happy now” theology doesn’t come through, faith wanes.
Scripture conflicts with this way of thinking. Let’s take the neglected context of Philippians 1. In this chapter Paul speaks repeatedly of his joy. What joy? He was writing from prison! Yet, his imprisonment did not lock up the gospel, so his mission lived on. Paul’s famous statement “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (verse 21) is followed immediately in verse 22 by his acknowledging that for him to live would mean “fruitful labor”. Dying would be gain as he would reach his destination: being with Christ in heaven. But meanwhile, he was a man on a mission – not a therapeutic one. After all, Paul could have stopped preaching and ended his victimization. Paul knew it was moving through suffering toward a gospel-life that he would come to fulfill his purpose stated in 3:10: “That I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death.” The power of his resurrection was found in the midst of sharing Christ’s sufferings.
One more example comes from Hebrews, written to persecuted believers. We often cite the great faith chapter 11 with its hall of fame of people who trusted God in the midst of challenges, but we miss how the chapter ends. Verses 35-40 detail some of the sufferings of these heroes, and the author then notes in verse 39 that many of them didn’t receive the promise during their lifetimes. Chapter 12 ups the ante to show the greatest example: Jesus himself. He endured his suffering not for immediate comfort, but for “the joy that was set before him” (verse 2). These heroes of faith were not pursuing comfort but inviting hardship because they were on a mission. Their faith fueled an eagerness to pursue God and his cause at all costs.
So what are you living for? When we can’t escape suffering, it is important to see that it has meaning – even if we don’t see it right now (thus the faith aspect). The Westminster Catechism’s first question gives one of the most famous answers to the question. What is our chief end? “To glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.”
From Resolution to Revolution
That is a wonderful view from 30,000 feet, but it begs the question what are you to do? What am I to do? I can’t speak to your specific circumstances and what glorifying God means in them. I can say that whatever they are, there is a faith-full way to walk through them, trusting in God even if you don’t understand them. We believe indeed that all things work together for good.
At the end of each day, it is helpful to review it and confess our failures in word, deed, and thoughts. We can also ask: how did I move toward Christ today? Leaning on him in hardship, calling on him in my fears, hoping in him in my sadness and sorrow? These won’t necessarily make the bad feelings go away, but it can put them into the context of living for Christ as Paul did. More generally, we can take a renewed look at our calling from God. Many Christians have succumbed to the cultural idea that life is muddling through our work to reach the weekend for fun. Yet, work is where many people find their meaning, doing whatever they are called to do to the glory of God. Easily we can do our jobs grumbling instead of seeing them as worship. Others may still be looking for their calling. How did you further that search today?
A favorite metaphor I use in my clinical work is that of a basketball player. Imagine a player sitting on the bench, hoping not to be asked to play lest she break a sweat, tire herself out, or get fouled or injured. She is just trying to avoid feeling bad. I don’t want her on my team, do you? Good players are eager to leave it all on the floor for the team and for the goal of victory. Diving for loose balls, taking a charge, or being out of breath are all worth it if they move you toward the goal of playing your best to help your team win. Good players take those discomforts in stride so long as they are moving toward the goal.
An anecdote from my internship year brought this home to me. I was playing in a staff versus kids basketball game where I was interning, and the “ref” was strongly biased in favor of the kids. I wanted to win for sure. At one point a kid grabbed a loose ball, pulled it back from a scrum of players, and elbowed me hard right above my eye. That was nothing compared to my anger that the referee called a foul on me for this. One doesn’t foul others by slamming their eye into elbows. I turned to voice my opinion to the ref when the ref looked at me and said, “Hey, man, you’re bleeding!” Sure enough, I was bleeding and ended up getting four stitches near my eyebrow. I didn’t know I was hurt because I was so focused on winning and having justice done. When pain is suffered while pursuing a goal, sometimes it isn’t as poignant.
In conclusion, I don’t want to discourage the usual New Year’s resolutions but ask you to take them one step further: ask yourself how they serve your purpose. Saving money might enable you to support the work of your church more. Losing weight might make you stronger to do chores for widows and others. Also consider asking yourself not just how to feel better but how to be better. Envision the meaning of living for Christ in an active sense, and how doing so in the midst of adversity glorifies God. Even in the throes of anxiety or depression, we can pursue God. Doing so would change your life, and might lead to a New Year’s revolution where you refocus on your calling as a Christian – even if you don’t feel great in the process.