Hope, Healing & Freedom Podcast: Episode 181
TRANSCRIPT
Do you like to make New Years Resolutions as the New Year approaches? Did you know that 45-50% of Americans make New Years Resolutions? Did you also know that only about 10% of those who make a resolution actually fulfill those resolutions? In this podcast I am going to make some suggestions on how to make realistic New Year resolutions. And wouldn’t you know it, RTF fits right into those suggestions.
I’m Lee Whitman from Restoring the Foundations and I welcome you into this Hope Healing and Freedom podcast. As we end 2025 and head into 2026, it is a very good thing to look at things you would like to change in the new year. In order to make those changes, it will be necessary to look at what kept you from those behaviors in the past. That is where RTF can be very helpful. But first, let’s look at the top potential areas for New Year’s resolutions in 2026.
These are the top eight areas taken from a national survey.
- 48% of people said they want to exercise more in 2026.
- 46% said they want to save more money.
- 45% want to eat healthier
- 42% want to spend more time with their family and friends.
- 31% want to lose weight
- 24% want to improve their performance on the job
- 24% want to do more for the environment
- 22% want to reduce stress in their lives
You will notice that in a nationwide survey, improving their relationship with God did not even make the list. Hopefully for us as believers in Jesus, improving our relationship with Jesus would be on our list. But even in something really good like improving our relationship with Jesus, we need to set realistic goals.
So, let’s say that you want to read your bible more in the coming year, that would be a very good goal. What happens often times in our enthusiasm we set ourselves up for failure. I remember getting inspired to add more bible time to my life one New Year and many people in our church were going to read the entire bible in that year so I decided that I would read through the entire bible during the next year. That is a goal that can be accomplished using one of the many reading plans that are available online. I made the mistake of going from not reading my bible very much on a daily basis, to having to read for 30-40 minutes every day in order to accomplish my goal of reading the bible through in one year. The bible reading plan that I chose at the time (back in the day there were not as many choices as there are today) was to read the bible from Genesis to Revelations straight through. It started out great because Genesis and Exodus are kind of fun to read with many stories to keep it interesting. But then you run into the book of Leviticus, which to be very honest, it just plain boring. And then you have to read Numbers, which again is not the most interesting book in the bible. I ran out of enthusiasm somewhere in Numbers and quit the whole process because it became more work than inspiration. To be honest, I bit off more than I was able to handle at that time in my life. Both my work schedule and my immaturity could not handle putting in that much time every day. I came away from that experience feeling like a failure which kept me from trying to read through the bible in a year for many years.
I would suggest that if you desire to read the bible in one year that you find a reading plan that does two things. First it divides the bible up so that you are reading some from the Old Testament mixed in with reading some from the New Testament. You will find it much more interesting to find a reading plan that mixes both the Old Testament and the New Testament. Second, I would take the pressure off of trying to read the entire bible through in one year. If all you are doing is reading the bible so that you can fulfill one of your resolutions, that is the wrong motive for reading the bible. Try moving your deadline to complete reading the bible back to 18 months or even 2 years. It is not a contest to be accomplished. The bible is a love letter from Father God to be digested.
We can also put unrealistic expectations on ourselves with things like prayer. Let me start out by saying that prayer is an integral part of our relationship with Jesus, Father God, and the Holy Spirit. However, when we put prayer into a New Years resolution, prayer often becomes something we do according to a clock and not because of relationship. When I was a young minister, we were encouraged by our senior pastor to develop the habit of praying for an hour every morning which is a really wonderful idea. At that time in my life, I believed that this hour of prayer had to be in your prayer closet on your knees in order for it to be effective. In my mind, any other form of prayer didn’t count. Only praying on your knees in your prayer closet counted with God. I was and am a very active person. Back in the day they called what I had as ADD. I had the hardest time staying on my knees and focusing in prayer for an hour. Because I failed more often than I succeeded in this discipline, I felt like such a failure, so I gave up. I have since learned that there is nothing magic about staying in prayer for one hour in the morning. I have learned that we are to pray without ceasing, which means that we continue in prayer all through the day. Is it good to start your day with prayer? Absolutely! But if you are praying for an hour so you can check off some spiritual box you think God has for you, you are mistaken. God wants your heart. He wants to have communion with you all through your day and not just for a set time in the morning. Set a realistic expectation for yourself. Try forcing yourself to turn you heart toward Jesus for a few minutes every hour of your day. Set the alarm on your phone to help you pause and turn your heart toward Jesus for a few minutes every hour. Once you establish that rhythm you will find you don’t need the phone anymore, it will become a habit of prayer.
What if your goal is like the number one goal 48% of the people surveyed had, and that is to exercise more. Once again, I am going to tell a story on myself to help you not make the same mistake. One year I decided that I was going to hit the gym and return to lifting weights like I had in my younger days. The problem was that my mind was willing but my body, not so much. I had not lifted weights for about a year. I started lifting where I had left off a year earlier. I ended up hurting myself and had to take several weeks to recover. I learned from that experience that when I have not been exercising regularly for a period of time, even like after being on a two-week ministry trip, I lift very light weights for the first week or two in order to get my muscles stronger gradually. Then I can increase the amount of weight and exercise. If you have this as a resolution for the new year, start off working out with lighter weights, weights that you can lift easily, for a week or two and then begin to increase the amount of repetitions as you get stronger.
Another common resolution is to lose weight. “I am going to lose 40 pounds before summer!” You may really want to lose those 40 pounds, but the best way to start is to set a realistic goal. Start by trying to lose 5 pounds in January, then keep going from there. As you reach that five-pound weight loss, learn to celebrate, not by overeating to celebrate, but by recognizing your hard work and accomplishment. It can be discouraging to think “I only lost 5 pounds this month”. Try celebrating that you lost five pounds and you are on your way. A place where RTF can help you in losing weight is by breaking lies and word curses. Let me talk about word curses first. It is not uncommon when you are struggling to lose weight to have at some time in your life, word cursed yourself. “I can never lose weight.” What that word curse does is it gives those words to our enemy to use against you. There is power in our words. Positive power when we declare the truth about what God is doing in our lives, but also negative power when we curse ourselves. Isaiah 54:17 says, “No weapon formed against you will prosper, and every tongue that accuses you in judgment you will condemn.” This is such a powerful verse. It says that the weapons formed against us will not prosper because we don’t let them. When a word is spoken against us, we have the authority and power as children of God to condemn that word so that the weapon does not prosper. We can take those word curses that have been spoken against us, even the words spoken by ourselves about ourselves, and condemn them so that their power is removed.
The second area that RTF can help with are ungodly beliefs. Ungodly beliefs are similar at times to the word curses that we speak about ourselves, but they usually go deeper into our belief system. When I was a kid, my mom always had to buy me pants from the husky section of the store. I could not fit into “normal” pants because I was a “husky” kid. So, all my life I have believed that I was husky. And the truth is that I have always had a bigger body type than many other people. Cindi’s brother had a very slender build, so for Christmas her mom would buy both of us shirts with what they called a European cut. I am sorry, but I have never had a European cut body. I have always had a full-size American body. My belief system was that I am bigger and I will always be bigger. It was not until I got ministry from RTF that I was able to change my belief and actually lose weight. I am still not a European cut, but I also do not identify myself any longer as husky. Your belief system controls how you will act and behave. We do not live out of what we think in our heads when life gets tough. When stress or pressure hits, we revert back to living out of what we actually believe. That is why we need to continually be addressing ungodly beliefs because they will control our lives. The cool part is that God is really good about telling us his truth when we ask Him. I was reading a book recently that listed truths that you can live by. The truths given in this book were really good and were very true. My problem with giving people truths to live by is that unless they go into your belief system, they will just be good thoughts in your mind. And as I said before, when crisis comes, you don’t live out of what you think. You live out of what you believe. Plus, this author did a very accurate job of telling people what the truth is, but that is not the same thing as hearing God speak His truth to you Himself. When you hear God personally speak His truth to you, you will never forget it. It will change your life.
Why am I talking about New Years Resolutions on this week’s podcast. I want to encourage you so that you can be successful with the things you want to change in 2026. I have made too many resolutions and failed to keep them over the years. I want to set you up for success and not for failure.
The best news is that we have the Holy Spirit living in us to help up fulfill the things He calls us to do. All you have to do is ask Him to help you in your weakness.
Father God, Thank You for this New Year. I believe it is going to be a great year. We ask you to empower us to make the changes we need to make in this New Year knowing that you will give us the power we need to fulfill them. Your power is made perfect in my weakness. Father, I pray blessings on my Brothers and Sisters as they face this new year. Will You give them the confidence they need to trust You no matter what the New Year brings. As Your Word says, You will never leave us nor forsake us, and You promise to go with us through the deep waters of life.
From Cindi and I and the RTF staff, we pray blessings on this New Year. We expect great things in 2026!