Experience seems to favor the common bantering comment that the resolutions people customarily make around the beginning of a new year, and even at crucial times of their lives, are made only to be broken. Similar criticism is sometimes applied to the decisions of the governments of communities and nations. A great modern-day statesman has aptly underscored this common weakness of both private and public resolutions by his castigation of certain policies as "decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent."
Who, under the pressure of circumstances or under the spell cast by the emotionalism of the moment, has not glibly announced, "I resolve"? Almost invariably the proposition then made fails to stick. One has merely "resolved to be irresolute." What, then, makes a proposition a resolution in fact and what does not?
Many times what we really mean when we say, "I resolve," is "I wish" or "I hope." The carnal mind produces many such uncertain attitudes. These, in turn, fill thought with fear, vacillation, and downright perversity. Referring to these evidences of lack of resolve, Paul said (Rom. 7:15), "That which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I."
