It’s that time of the year where, having made our new years resolutions, we are able to take stock as to whether we are still on track with keeping them and, frankly, whether our resolutions had the greatest value in our lives for the upcoming year and beyond. In the midst of this reflection, I’d like to suggest there is an “Ultimate Resolution” we can make that will pay the greatest dividends in our lives in the year 2024 and beyond. To get to get to that, the stage must be set by considering a life-changing truth we find from the above verse. Ready? Let’s dive in…

We live in a win-at-all-cost world – second place is really viewed as “first loser,” and NO ONE wants to be a loser. We have come up with saying after saying that, while they may not state it overtly, make it clear that anything short of winning is unacceptable. Statements like “Those who can’t do, coach!”, or “If you can accept losing, you can’t win.”, or the one that describes it best, “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing!”. Without a doubt, everyone wants to “win” at whatever they put their mind and hands to. I mean, winning is always better than losing, right? Well, not in all cases…

Having grown up playing competitive sports, I can say winning is fun and we most certainly should strive to be the best at whatever we do. To strive for anything less than doing our best is to settle for being less than what we could be, and to settle for less than what we could be is, well, sad. Perhaps what is even sadder, though, is not realizing that “winning or being first” and “striving to do your best” are not always synonymous with each other. The reality is you can not come in first at something and still win, providing you strive to be and do your best in the process. Vince Lombardi said it this way – “The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have.” The truth is, all people are created equal in value but not equal in capabilities – there will always be someone more talented, someone with better skills, someone who’s capabilities are far greater than ours… someone smarter, stronger, faster, and just flat-out better. So the real question centers on whether we are doing the best and the most we possibly can with what we “have” to work with. This reality and thought gets more profound and evident as we truly strive to live our lives for the Lord. Spiritually speaking, God works from a completely different paradigm on the “winning” and “losing” conversation. In fact, His Word reveals that many times “losing” is really winning. We find in the Bible statements like, “”Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”, “If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.”, “He must increase, but I must decrease”, and so on. Talk about counter-cultural statements – this does not even come close to fitting into our modern day cultural belief systems. Yet, an honest look at scripture reveals, over and over again, when it comes to living a life pleasing to God “losing” (becoming the least) means “winning” (being the greatest).

From the verse above, lifted from Genesis 32, let’s breifly consider Jacob. An initial read of this verse, removed from its immediate context, would lead you to believe that Jacob was a consummate winner, finding victory not only over a man but God Himself. But a closer, in-context read of the full story tells quite the opposite. By the time you get to verse 28, Jacob has wrestled all night with “the Man” – a theophany, God in human form – and has had his hip dislocated at the end of the “match” by a touch of the Man’s finger. Clinging to Him, Jacob asks for a blessing and the Man responds to the request by saying, “Tell me your name.” Seems like an odd question in the moment, but the reasons behind the question we could spend all day pondering and discussing. In short, for the sake of time and space, the purpose behind the question asked of Jacob by the Man, God, was to get Jacob to consider the character of hislife and to admit that he had, up until that point, lived “down” to the meaning of his name. The name Jacob’s literal meaning is “heel-catcher, supplanter, usurper” or, to be more clear, “manipulator, liar, thief.” So when Jacob responded with “My name is Jacob” it was an admission before God that, in short, his character and how he lived his life was not in accordance with God’s character. That, as one who had relied on his own talent, abilities, intellect, and resources to win at life, he had not let God be in full control of his life. He was a great sinner in need of a great Savior who needed to be conquered and governed by God which, amazingly (or not!), is one of the meanings of the new name Jacob is given – Israel.

There is much to expound on from this passage but, for this post, the point is this – within God’s paradigm of winning at life, to be exalted you must be humble; to go high you must go low; to be strong you must be weak; to be the greatest you must become the servant of all. Ultimately, to win you must first be “defeated” (read “governed”) by the One who is greater. Even Jesus, the greatest man of all, said of Himself, “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and give His life a ransom for many.” Jacob “prevailed” by losing and, through relinquishing control of his life to God, he found victory over man’s greatest battle – the battle with trusting in self and not fully in God.  Jacob, in “losing,” won the greatest of all prizes – the blessings of God. When you view yourself through the lense of God’s Word, what area(s) of your life do you need to relinquish control of to God? In what ways are you trusting in self that need to be conquered by God? I encourage you to acknowledge that you, like each of us, are in need of a great Savior and that you, like each of us, need to find victory over the tendency to trust in self over God. Let “Conquered and Governed by God” be your victoriously defeated name and, by doing so, receive the greatest of all prizes – the blessings of God!

Oh… so, back to the beginning of this post. What’s the Ultimate Resolution for ’24 and beyond? To get to that, in upcoming posts the varied ways the word “resolution” can be defined will be looked into. In doing this, the depth and width and breadth of this Ultimate Resolution will come more and more into focus leading to a greater understanding what it looks like, how we are called to live it out, and what the fruit of it will be in and through our lives.

Until part two… let’s resolve to be governed by God!