We’re wrapping up the first week of the New Year, as well as the first week of the Year of No. It’s been a pretty good week for me, as far as saying “No” to my entitlements goes. I started off by naming my entitlements and indulgences, which has helped me to stay focused on what I’m saying “No” to, as well as to provide perspective about how often I’m saying “No” and why. If you haven’t taken the time to sit down and name your entitlements and indulgences, I highly recommend you do so. Clarity is the first step toward victory.

As far as my entitlements go, I haven’t eaten out except for work or family events. I’ve forced myself to find food around the house, or to eat something before I leave for work at night so that I won’t be tempted to stop at Wendy’s or Chipotle. My pop consumption is less than half of what it was last year. The other temptations that I face occur less frequently, but the concept of the Year of No has been at the front of my mind, so I’ve been intentional about taking ground on those issues, too. 

Like many of you, we are snowed in today. Many of us treat days like this as special, like a birthday or a holiday. This means that we might allow ourselves to indulge in certain pleasures that we may not otherwise. We give ourselves permission to indulge because we believe that these indulgences are what make special days so special. But the danger of indulging is not in what it means for today, but what it could mean for tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. Saying “Yes” to our indulgences and entitlements today makes us far more likely to say “Yes” to them tomorrow, which makes it more likely we say “Yes” the next day, and so on.

The other thing that can happen on snow days is we can go a little stir crazy. Our kids have been out of school for almost three full weeks now, and because of the weather here in the Midwest we’re all stuck indoors. Together. Tensions can run high. You might be tempted to yell or lash out. You might be tempted to grab your phone and lock yourself in the bathroom for an hour. Days like today are the ones when my resolve is most tested. What can we do to overcome the temptations of these “special” days?

Titus 2:11-12 says, “For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age.” God’s grace teaches us to say “No.” If you’re snowed-in at home today and tempted to indulge, remember that it’s not clenching your fists and gritting your teeth that helps you say “No,” it’s the grace of God. God has grace for you today to say “No” to the ungodliness of your indulgence and entitlement and to say “Yes” to self-control. When you’re tempted today, ask God for grace.

Self-discipline requires both grace and vigilance. We can’t do this on our own, but through the grace of God we can do this. We can become more like Jesus by making these small decisions toward self-discipline. God gives us the power to make these choices in his grace. But we must be vigilant. Character development doesn’t happen on accident. When we allow things to get out of balance today, our starting point for tomorrow is that same out-of-balance point. In other words, we lose hard-fought ground when we indulge ourselves. But when we continue on the path of self-discipline, we gain a great victory because we have overcome the tiny temptations that beset us each day, and on the sort of day when we are most likely to indulge ourselves.

Many of us have formed habits of permissiveness that manifest themselves in times of stress, or on special days when we just want to relax and take a break. We have rationalized our indulgence. 

I’m going to smoke this cigarette because work was really stressful today.

The kids are home from school so we’re just going to lay around, watch movies, and eat cookies all day.

The little ones are finally asleep and now I’m going to binge on social media for the next two hours.

Special days call for special grace. Instead of permissiveness, focus on what God has set you free to do and become. You don’t have to be enslaved by the old temptations anymore. There is grace for you, and in that grace there is great power. Use the time you have to form new habits rather than fall back into old ones. Special days are unique opportunities to become the new you!

There has been a pretty great response to the Year of No so far. Lots of folks have been sharing on Facebook and Twitter with the hashtag #yearofno. I’m really excited about what God might do in the lives of folks who begin to say “No” to their daily entitlements and indulgences. Small acts of self-denial make room for larger works of God’s kingdom. Denying yourself always leads to finding life. 

The first step of self-denial is naming the things to which you feel entitled or in which you indulge. As I said in the Year of No introductory post, “clarity is the first step toward victory.” We can only overcome that which we clearly and continually name.

Most of the things that we are naming here are not bad things (though some of them could be). They are little things that we feel entitled to throughout the day. They are things that have gotten out of balance in our hearts. They have become too important – so important that we think we deserve them or need them to be content. I’ve decided to post mine online. If you’re having trouble identifying some of your entitlements, maybe reading mine will kickstart your thinking.

As things with Zeke spiraled downward and the chaos of our lives escalated, eating out became normative. At first it was an act of desperation and exhaustion, but soon it became the one opportunity I had to experience daily pleasure. It soon formed into a habit and an expectation, and now it’s time to break it. I’m concerned that I’m reaching a critical point in my physical health, so it’s time to start saying “No” to eating out and drinking pop all the time.

I want to return to a time when eating out and enjoying finer foods was an act of celebration rather than an everyday occurrence. I want to be a healthier man for my wife and kids. This, I’ve found, is one of the toughest fights I’ll face this year. The stomach (and tastebuds) is a powerful force, one that is not so easily denied. The temptation will come in manipulative forms: You didn’t drink a Coke for lunch, but you can have one as a snack. You’ve denied yourself long enough, it’s time to enjoy a treat. No!

2. Remaining relationally and emotionally distant.

I’m an introvert, so I tend toward being relationally distant as it is. I enjoy the world of ideas more than, you know, interacting with other humans. But as a pastor, my introversion is one of the main detractors from my ability to minister to others. I’ll never be the outgoing type, but I need to push myself toward being more engaged with the people that God has brought into my life. Saying “No” to my right, as an introvert, to be withdrawn and relationally aloof is important for my character development this year.

3. Binging on Entertainment

My Meyers-Briggs personality type is INTJ, and one of the things that INTJs do when they’re “in the grip” (meaning, when they’re under stress) is binge on entertainment. For me, this comes out in Netflix binges or engrossing myself in a video game. On days like today (New Year’s Day), I’ll lay on the couch and watch football for ten hours straight. (Or I would have before I had kids.) In the midst of the binge, the troubles and stressors are forgotten. By engulfing myself in entertainment, I enter into a false reality, and all false realities cut me off from my true self.

Stress is a part of my life. It’s difficult to avoid stress when one of your children is slowly dying. Being “in the grip” has become the new normal. But binging on entertainment, which is essentially disengaging from reality, does not help me to develop the kind of character God is busy forming within me. To partner with God in my own character formation, I need to learn to say “No” to the entertainment binges in which I try to escape.

4. Sleeping In

This is a tough one because Breena and I both have to get up multiple times each night to care for Zeke. It’s been a long time since either of us have gotten a decent night’s sleep, so you can understand how it can be tempting to sleep in every day. The problem is that we have three other kids, and all of them like to get up pretty early. They need to be cared for, and we can’t effectively do that while sleeping in our bed. (Curse you space-time continuum!) I can’t be the dad they need from my bed, so getting up and getting the day started is vital, both for myself and for my kids.

I hope that by naming my entitlements you’ll be able to be more aware of, and be able to give names to, the small things you feel entitled to, or indulge in, as you go about your day. Remember, the Year of No is not about saying “No” to something forever; it’s about saying “No” to an entitlement right now so that you can say “Yes” to something better and more important.

Facebook does this “Year in Review” thing now, which is pretty cool. I tend to forget about some of the things that I post on Facebook, so it was nice to stumble upon a couple of thoughts that I put up there. These were too long to tweet, apparently, but I must have wanted to get them out before I lost them. They are reflections on how the kingdom looks in the world:

God’s kingdom does not come through political or social activism, nor through “standing up for what’s right,” but only and always through his people embodying the crucifixion and resurrection by laying down their lives, setting aside their rights, forgiving sins, and breathing life where there was death.

I’m not exactly sure what inspired these thoughts, but I think this was somewhere around the time that I was reading Practice Resurrection by Eugene Peterson. My worldview has also been significantly modified this past year, especially in the ways in which I understand the kingdom’s relationship with this world.

The WAY of God’s Kingdom (the How, the Methods, the Ethos, the Spirit) is fundamentally opposed to the WAY of the world. Because the WAY of the world is victory, winning, and the survival of the strong, the Kingdom of God can only enter this world through loss, suffering, and death. God’s Kingdom does not enter the world through the ways or with the aims of the world, i.e. by the world’s methods. God’s Kingdom comes on his terms and in his ways, which are most clearly demonstrated in the crucifixion of his son. God’s kingdom comes through the weak upending the strong, through the foolish shaming the wise, through crucifixion that leads to resurrection.

New Year’s resolutions are a great idea. The start of a new year is the perfect time to make important changes in your life, changes that will help you to become the person you want to be. A healthier diet. Regular exercise. Reading the Bible every day. All of these are important things that will shape your character for good.

At the heart of almost every resolution is the issue of self-discipline, and the heart of self-discipline is the ability to say “No” to the wrong things so that you can say “Yes” to the right things. I need to learn to say “No” to the things that steal my time, my health, and my character so that I can become the man God wants me to be. And I think most of us want to become the person God wants us to be.

We want to instill practices in our lives that make us better people. We want to form good habits and participate in daily spiritual disciplines. We want to eat better and work out more. Hence, New Year’s resolutions.

The Problem

But I’ve discovered, after trying this every year for about 20 years, that turning on a dime is nearly impossible. Most of us are like battleships. We need a lot of time and energy to change course. Of all the resolutions I’ve made over the years, I was only ever able to keep one of them. (I read through the whole Bible in 2011, so I’ve pretty much punched my ticket to heaven.) That’s about a 2% success rate. Yikes!

Most of the people I know are close to that number with the resolutions they’ve been able to keep. While some people are significantly better at keeping resolutions, most of us feel lucky to have stuck to one or two in our entire lives. All of this failure makes me want to stop trying. Maybe you’ve reached that point. I know I have. I’m ready to try something new.

Resolutions don’t work because we’re not used to living lives of self-discipline. It’s a me problem. I enjoy certain things in life, and have come to believe that I am entitled to them.

Whether it’s eating out or sleeping in, the pleasures of life are no longer something I enjoy occasionally, but rather pleasures to which I feel entitled every day, every meal. The problem isn’t that I’m not saying yes to the right things; it’s that I’m saying yes to the tiny pleasures of life all the time. Saying “Yes!” to these tiny pleasures, these entitlements, too often leaves no room to say “Yes!” to the things that create character in your soul.

I drink Coke at almost every meal.

I get on Facebook and Twitter dozens of times each day, at work and home, stealing time from my vocation and my family.

I read sports blogs instead of good books.

I watch Netflix instead of exercising.

This list could go on and on. While these things are not bad in and of themselves, and they can be part of a healthy and balanced life, what I’ve discovered is that the development of my character is won or lost in a thousand tiny decisions each day. Trying to cut out sugar, Coke, or Facebook all at once on January 1 just doesn’t work for most people. It has never worked for me. So I want to try something new, and I’d like to invite you to participate with me.

The Solution

I’m calling 2014 the Year of No. It’s not the Year of No Netflix, or the Year of No Fast Food, or the Year of No Shopping. I’m not quitting anything cold turkey. 2014 is just the Year of No – the year of saying “No!” to something to which you feel entitled each day. It’s the year of celebrating small victories of self-discipline and self-denial. Radical, immediate life change is very rare. More often than not, life change is a long, slow process of saying “No!” to your entitlements which then opens up space for you to say “Yes!” to the practices and disciplines that allow for character development.

In Mark 8:34-35, Jesus said:

Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.

I’m convinced that following Jesus is not a decision I make once, but is a long series of decisions made everyday. It’s not a prayer I pray once, but a persistent prayer of “No!” against the entitlements and temptations of my heart. You have to learn to say “No” before you can say “Yes.” You have to lose your life before you can save it.

I need to learn to say “No,” but I know that I can’t learn it all at once. I’ve tried that. But maybe I can learn to say “No” one decision at a time. I don’t need to cut Twitter out of my life, but I do need to learn to say “No” when I’m tempted to scan through it eight times at work or while my kids are awake. That’s what this is about: cutting back what is out of a balance rather than cutting it out of my life completely. I know myself too well to think that I can do the latter at this point, but I remain optimistic about being able to do the former.

The Plan

So here’s my plan.

Identify some of the things to which you feel entitled, and write them down. It could be anything. Eating out. Watching TV. Sleeping in. Drinking alcohol. Buying clothes. Facebook. Comments sections on news websites. (Okay, that one you should cut out completely!) Wherever you find yourself indulging, that’s where your entitlement lives. Identify your entitlements, write them down, and keep them somewhere you’ll see them everyday. Clarity is the first step toward victory, and writing is important for remembering.

Say “No!” to one of your entitlements every day. Have a glass of water at lunch instead of Coke. Stay off of Facebook or Twitter while at work. Put your phone away when you get home and interact with your roommates, spouse, or kids. It’s not about saying “No” to something forever; it’s about saying “No” to an entitlement right now so that you can say “Yes” to something better and more important. This is how you win the battle for self-discipline: denying one little entitlement at a time.

Share your experiences – the victories and the failures – using the hashtag #yearofno. At the risk of being both cheesy and self-congratulatory, I think it’s important to share this stuff with each other because self-discipline isn’t something I can do by myself. I’ve tried that already, dozens of times, and failed every time. We need each other for celebration and accountability. So when you say “No!” to that second dessert, or cigarette, or Netflix binge, share it on Facebook or Twitter with the hashtag #yearofno so we can all celebrate with you. (Of course, if your entitlement is social media, find an appropriate time to share it. Hint: Not when your kids are asking for your attention!)

This is not a resolution. This is not about quitting something cold turkey. This is about strengthening your will through tiny exercises of self-discipline. It’s about denying yourself in small ways every day so that you can become the person God wants you to be. It’s about denying yourself so that you can find true life.

If this is something that you would like to do, you don’t have to sign up for anything or even tell me. You can just start saying “No!” to your entitlements and use the hashtag on Twitter or Facebook. Then, if you see someone else doing it, you can offer them encouragement and support. Feel free to share this post so that other folks can know what you’re doing and participate, too.

It was a busy year for me, and I wasn’t able to read as much as I would have liked. Still, I was able to get into some good books, especially the new biography of C.S. Lewis, and Practice Resurrection by Eugene Peterson. Looking back over the previous 12 months, I can see that this was a year of learning, sometimes through books.

The Resurrection of the Son of God – N.T. Wright

N.T. Wright’s new book on Paul came out this year, a 1700 page masterpiece that I was very excited about getting into. It was the fourth volume in his series Christian Origins and the Question of God. Unfortunately, I had stopped reading The Resurrection of the Son of God, the third volume in the series, several years ago, and I wanted to finish that book before moving on to the new one. Resurrection is a 750 page monster that defies being summarized in a single paragraph. By the time I finished it, I was too mentally exhausted to pick up the book on Paul, though I am looking forward to digging into it next year.

Resurrection is a scholarly book intended to converse with, and profoundly shape, the current state of scholarship on the resurrection of Jesus. It has more than succeeded on both fronts. Wright has examined both the liberal and conservative perspectives on the resurrection and found them wanting.

Practice Resurrection – Eugene Peterson

Eugene Peterson gets me every time. Reading his books are like having an intensive discipleship session with a pastor you’ve never personally met but who gets you completely. Peterson has been as responsible for shaping my pastoral ministry as Wright has been for shaping my theological perspective. I am always in good, pastoral hands with Eugene Peterson.

Practice Resurrection is Peterson’s exegesis of the book of Ephesians. Extremely quotable, of all the books I read this year this is the first one that I would recommend. Peterson is one of the best writers of prose you’ll find in evangelical Christianity. Add to that his conviction and one-crying-in-the-desert prophetic voice, and you have a memorable and formative work on your hands.

Death by Living – N.D. Wilson

I had not heard of N.D. Wilson before I got his book via booksneeze.com, but he is an excellent writer with a very unique style. Known more for his works of fiction, Wilson writes like a film director, using story and image to draw you into this book. You can find my review of Death by Living here.

Apparently there is a film version of C.S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce in the works, and N.D. Wilson is attached as the writer. After reading Death by Living, I’m excited to see how this will turn out. Wilson has a lot of talent, and The Great Divorce is one of my favorites by Lewis. If you’re a big fan of Lewis, you may want to get acquainted with Wilson’s style to prepare yourself for what Divorce might look like.

Fight – Craig Groeschel

I’ve always enjoyed Groeschel’s casual, funny writing style. His appeal is very broad, and his book, Fight, certainly fits into that mold. It’s a book about the fights that Christian men must engage with in order to be the men that God has called them to be. You can find my review of Fight here.

The biggest takeaway from Fight, for me, was that he named entitlement as one of the things men must fight against. I find that this is especially true in my own life. I live with a deeply-ingrained sense that I deserve good things, and ought only to have good things happen to me. I don’t know where I picked up this sense of entitlement, but I have certainly paid a price for holding onto it.

Fight is a good book, and I would recommend it to guys who aren’t quite ready to jump into deeper books.

Hopeful Imagination – Walter Brueggemann

A lot of the people I respect the most really love Walter Brueggemann. I’ve tried several times to get into his work, but for one reason or another, was just never able to get too excited about him. Hopeful Imagination, his book on the prophets of exile, finally got me over the hump. This is an insightful book on pastoral ministry in the place of exile. Much like N.T. Wright, Brueggemann works hard to find a middle ground between liberal and conservative Christianity, though conservatives would certainly be put off by his insistence that Isaiah 40-55 was written by someone other than 8th century Isaiah of Jerusalem, and written sometime after the exile in Babylon. Admittedly, this was something that was difficult for me to get over, as I have always held the book of Isaiah to be written by a single author. Brueggemann’s pastoral insights, however, overcame any distancing I felt from his critical perspectives.

C.S. Lewis: A Life – Alister McGrath

Few authors have shaped me as thoroughly and deeply as C.S. Lewis. I began reading his books in high school, when I prided myself on being able to finish Mere Christianity. (How much I really grasped of his argument is open to debate.) From there I read The Great Divorce, The Screwtape Letters, and The Abolition of Man. Oddly enough, I still have never read the entire Narnia series.

McGrath’s biography of Lewis is both thorough and engaging. I have a great deal of respect for McGrath, and so I knew that I would appreciate his work on Lewis. Since this is the only biography of Lewis I have read, I don’t have anything else with which to compare it. Some, I have heard, have objected to McGrath’s interpretation of Lewis’s relationship with Mrs. Moore. Whatever the true nature of that relationship, this was a very insightful look into one of Christianity’s most important thinkers.

Evil and the Justice of God – N.T. Wright

This was a book that I had been hoping to pick up for quite a while, and finally got around to it after I had boxed up all my books and couldn’t find anything to read. It is one of Wright’s shorter books, and in that sense is fairly accessible to most readers. For too long, he argues, we have believed in the inevitable progress of mankind toward a utopian society where evil has been expunged from the world. Invariably, we are shocked when evil rears its ugly head, whether in the terrorist attacks of 9/11, or in the tsunami of 2004.

This book is more pastoral than philosophical. Evil, he says, is not a problem that can be solved in this life. Instead of arguing apologetics or waxing philosophical, the task of the Christian is to be and build signposts of God’s wise rule in this present evil age. Overcoming evil is not a matter of argumentation or explanation, but of incarnation. While this book might not help you win any arguments against the new atheists (see Alvin Plantinga’s God, Freedom, and Evil for that task), it will help you become the kind of person through whom evil is pushed back just a little bit.

The Passionate Intellect – Alister McGrath

This was another one of those books that I had been looking to purchase for quite a while, but never really got around to it until all my books were in boxes. The title of McGrath’s book intrigues me, and as a preacher with a theological bent, seemed to be right up my alley. In simple terms, McGrath’s aim with this book was to provide an avenue for the combination of head and heart. Too much of modern Christianity, evangelicalism in particular, has gotten the reputation of being anti-intellectual. Deserved or not, this is a troubling indictment, particularly considering the church’s long history of intellectual rigor and discovery. It is possible, he argues, to be both passionate and intellectual, and the Christian must feel no need to sacrifice one for the other.

In the ongoing debate between Christians and the New Atheists, Alister McGrath remains one of the go-to guys for Christianity. He devotes a significant part of this book to refuting the ideas of Dawkins, Dennet, Hitchens, and the other New Atheists. If you’re interested in apologetics and the life of the mind, this book would be an excellent addition to your library.

Follow Me – David Platt

I picked this book up for free at a conference I attended in March. Though I didn’t like Radical, I appreciated a lot about this book, and agree with Platt in his basic assumption that the Church isn’t doing a great job of making disciples out of converts. Much is needed to improve our discipleship efforts, and the longterm health of the Church depends on pastors and leaders transitioning from their vain attempts at empire-building and into humble efforts of kingdom-building.

My fundamental disagreement with Platt is along theological lines. He makes a fairly accessible case for his Reformed position on salvation, and I have addressed that with a response here. A long discussion with a friend ensued in which I elucidated my position further. You can read that exchange in this post and comments section. Because of our theological differences, I’ll never recommend a book by David Platt, John Piper, or Mark Driscoll, but I will admit that I resonated with Platt’s basic premise.

A Long Faithfulness – Scot McKnight

On the other end of the theological spectrum, the side that I call home, lies Scot McKnight. One of the world’s foremost New Testament scholars, McKnight put out an ebook on the difficult “perseverance” passages of Hebrews. The underlying question is this: Can a committed Christian lose their salvation? McKnight views this as the fundamental question – the very backbone – of Reformed theology. If, contrary to the Reformed position, a genuine Christian can lose their salvation, then the whole Reformed house of cards falls apart. McKnight asserts that everything in Reformed theology is built upon the perseverance of the saints.

The book of Hebrews, however, indicates that it is possible for a Christian to lose their salvation. While it isn’t easy, and never happens by accident, apostasy is real. God has given us the freedom to choose, and to un-choose, himself. You can read more about this fascinating study in my book review here.

The Good and Beautiful God – James Bryan Smith

This book was part of our life group curriculum while we were at LifePoint Church in Columbus. It is the first part of a trilogy of books, though I haven’t gotten to the other ones yet. This worked well in the group, allowing us to converse together about the “false narratives” we have come to believe about God, ourselves, and the world. The thesis of the book is “transformation happens through training my soul,” which corresponds to one of the five lessons I learned this past year.

I intended to blog my thoughts on the book, chapter-by-chapter. As usual, however, life got in the way and I wasn’t able to meet my goal. However, you can find my thoughts on chapter 1, chapter 2, and chapter 6 on the blog.

Against Calvinism – Roger Olson

Roger Olson is among the foremost Arminian biblical scholars in America. This small book is meant to be a companion to For Calvinism by Michael Horton. My wife pointed out that the tulips on For Calvinism were in bloom, but in Against they are dried and dead. Nice touch, book designer!

This wasn’t necessarily a book I needed to read. To be honest, I probably should have read Horton’s book so that I can have a better understanding of the Calvinist perspective. This was more of a pleasure read, which just underscores how much of a nerd I really am. Overall, I thought Olson did a great job of debunking some of Calvinism’s more extreme views. The next step, I suppose, is to create a For and Against Arminianism collection.

I didn’t read as much as I would have liked this year. My time and energy were spent on other things, especially my family’s needs in the midst of Zeke’s illness. My hope for 2014 is to use more of my free time to read, and I already have a healthy stack of books lined up for the new year. The really ambitious goal is to get through a book a week, though if I read two a month I think I could live with that. I hope that you’re able to take some time next year to devote to reading, learning, and growing.