Where Has This Guy Been All My Life?

Where has this guy been all my life? Jonathan Edwards, preacher and writer, realizing he is unable to do anything without God's help, wrote these resolutions. What great copy for commencement speeches or next year's Lenten firsts.  I learned of it in Nothing To Fear by U.S. Senate Chaplain Barry Black

Resolved:  I will do whatever I think will be most to God’s glory. I will do all these things without any consideration of the time they take.  I will do whatever I understand to be my duty and will provide the most good and benefit to mankind in general. Resolved to do this, whatever difficulties I encounter, and no matter how many I experience or how severe they may be.

 

If ever – really, whenever – I fail and fall and/or grow weary and dull; whenever I begin to neglect the keeping of any part of these resolutions; I will repent of everything I can remember that I have violated or neglected, …as soon as I come to my senses again.

 

Never to do anything, whether physically or spiritually, except what glorifies God.  In fact, I resolve not only to this commitment, but I resolve not to even grieve and gripe about these things, …if I can avoid it.

 

Never lose one moment of time; but seize the time to use it in the most profitable way I possibly can.

 

To live with all my might, …while I do live.

 

Never to do anything which I would be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life.

 

When I feel pain, to think of the pains of martyrdom – both of Jesus and of believers around the world; and remind myself of the reality of hell.

 

If I find myself taking delight in any gratification of pride or vanity, or on any other such empty virtue, I will immediately discard this gratification.

 

Never to do anything out of revenge.

 

Never to suffer the least emotions of anger about irrational beings.

 

Never to speak evil of anyone, except if it is necessary for some real good.

 

I will live in such a way, as I will wish I had done when I come to die.

 

To maintain the wisest and healthiest practices in my eating and drinking.

 

To endeavor to obtain for myself as much happiness in the world to come as I possibly can.  To accomplish this I will use all the strength, power, vigor, and vehemence – even violence – I am capable of, or can bring myself to exert, in any way that can be thought of.

 

Frequently take some deliberate action – something out of the ordinary – and do it for the glory of God.

 

To study the scriptures so steadily, and so constantly, and so frequently, that it becomes evident – even obvious – to myself that my knowledge of them has grown.

 

To strive to my utmost every week to be brought to a higher spiritual place, and to a greater experience of grace, than I was the week before.

 

Never to say anything at all against anybody; except when to do so is perfectly consistent with the highest standards of Christian honor and love to mankind; and except when it is consistent with the sense of greatest humility and awareness of my own faults and failings. Then, whenever I have said anything against anyone, I will examine my words against the strictest test of the Golden Rule.

 

To be strictly and firmly faithful to whatever God entrusts to me.  My hope is that the saying in Proverbs 20:6,  “A faithful man who can find?” may not be found to be even partly true of me.

 

Always do whatever I can towards making, maintaining, establishing and preserving peace, whenever it can be, but without over-balancing the value peace to such a degree that it becomes a detriment in other respects.

 

When telling stories, never to speak anything but the pure and simple truth.

 

To inquire every night, as I am going to bed, where I may have been negligent, what sin I have committed, and how I have denied myself. I will also do this at the end of every week, month and year.

 

Never to speak anything that is ridiculous, trivial or otherwise inappropriate on the Lord’s Day or Sabbath evening.

 

To ask myself at the end of every day, week, month and year, where I could have possibly done better in any respect.

 

To frequently renew my dedication to God, which was first made at my baptism and which I solemnly renewed when I was received into the communion of the church.

 

Never, from this day until the day I die, act as if I were in any way my own, but entirely and altogether belong to God, and then live in a way agreeable to this reality.

 

That nothing other than the gospel shall have any influence at all on any of my actions; and that no action shall be, even in the very least circumstance, anything other than gospel declares, demands and implies.

 

Never to allow any pleasure or grief, joy or sorrow, nor any affection at all, nor any degree of affection, nor any circumstance, but what advances the gospel.

 

To endeavor to my utmost to deny whatever is not most agreeable to a good, and universally sweet and benevolent, quiet, peace able, contented, easy, compassionate, generous, humble, meek, modest, submissive, obliging, diligent and industrious, charitable, even, patient, moderate, forgiving, sincere temper; and to do at all times what such a temper would lead me to.

 

That neglect never shall be, if I can help it.

 

I will act in such a way as I think I will judge to have been best and most prudent, when I have come into the future world – Heaven.

 

I frequently hear persons in old age say how they would live, if they were to live their lives over again, so… Resolved: That I will live just as I can imagine I shall wish I had done, supposing I live to old age.

 

To improve every opportunity, when I am in the best and happiest frame of mind, to cast and venture my soul on the Lord Jesus Christ, to trust and confide in him, and consecrate myself wholly to him; that from this I may have assurance of my eternal safety, knowing that my confidence is in my Redeemer.

 

Whenever I hear anything spoken in a conversation of any person, if I think what is said of that person would be praiseworthy in me, I will endeavor to imitate it.

 

To endeavor to my utmost to act as I can imagine I would if I had already seen all the happiness of heaven, as well as the torments of hell.

 

Never to give up, nor even slacken up, in my fight with my own corruptions, no matter how successful or unsuccessful I may be.

 

When I fear misfortunes and adversities, to examine whether I have done all I am expected to do, and resolve to do everything I am able to do.  Once I have done all that God requires of me, I will accept whatever comes my way, and accept that it is just as God’s providence has ordered it.  I will, as far as I can, be concerned about nothing but my own duty and my own sin.

 

Not only to refrain from an air of dislike, fretfulness and anger in conversations, but also to exhibit an air of love, cheerfulness and graciousness.

 

Whenever I am most conscious of feelings of ill nature, bad attitude, and/or anger, I will strive then the most to feel and act good naturedly.  At such times I know I may feel that to exhibit good nature might seem in some respects to be to my own immediate disadvantage, but I will nevertheless act in a way that is gracious, realizing that to do otherwise would be imprudent at other times (i.e., times when I am not feeling so irked).

 

Whenever my feelings begin to appear in the least out of sorts, when I am conscious of the least uneasiness within my own heart and/or soul, or the least irregularity in my behavior, I will immediately subject myself to the strictest examination. (i.e., Psalm 42.11)

 

I will not give way to that apathy and listlessness which I find artificially eases and relaxes my mind from being fully and fixedly set on God’s grace. Whatever excuses I may have for it, whatever my listlessness inclines me to do, or rather whatever it inclines me to neglect doing, I will realize that it would actually be best for me to do these things.

 

Never to do anything but what God, by the Law of Love, requires me to do. And then, according to Ephesians 6:6-8, I must do it willingly and cheerfully as to the Lord, and not for man.  I must remember that whatever good thing any man has or does he has first received from God; and that whenever a man is compelled by faith to act with love and charity toward others, especially those in need, that we do it as if to/for the Lord.

 

Whenever I experience those “groanings which cannot be uttered” (Romans 8:26), of which the apostle speaks, and those “longings” that consume our souls, of which the psalmist speaks (Psalm 119:20), I will embrace them with everything I have within me. And I will not be weary of earnestly endeavoring to express my desires, nor of the repetitions so often necessary to express them and benefit from them.

 

To exercise myself in all my life long, with the greatest openness I am capable of, to declare my ways to God, and lay open my soul to him: all my sins, temptations, difficulties, sorrows, fears, hopes, desires; and everything in every circumstance.

 

I will endeavor always to keep a gracious demeanor, and air of acting and speaking in all places and in all companies, except if it should so happen that faithfulness requires otherwise.

 

After afflictions, to inquire in what ways I am now the better for having experienced them. What good have I received by them? What benefits and insights do I now have because of them?

 

Always to do that which I will wish I had done whenever I see others do it.

 

Let there be something of benevolence, in all that I speak.