Have You Given Up Yet?

Embracing the spirit of Quitters Day

By the second Friday of January, approximately 80% of people who made New Year’s resolutions will have decided to quit.

Dubbed “Quitters Day” by Strava (a fitness tracker and social network for athletes), that is the Friday when the great wave of ambition and motivation that drives New Year's resolutions peters out. It's a perfect storm at the turn of each calendar year; when holiday cheer and/or regret, after-Christmas sales on exercise equipment, everyone’s “year in review” posts on social media, and an ever-present desire for self-improvement push many of us to make resolutions related to exercise and weight loss, eating habits, spiritual practices, family relationships, and more.

Perhaps you made some resolutions this year, too. In a fit of organization, on the final days of my winter break and seeing the end of the 2022 calendar, I ordered some new shelves from IKEA, sorted through my kids’ drawers for old and outsized clothing, and contained my youngest son’s favorite stuffies in a new soft-sided storage basket. We put all the clean laundry away—my family knows what a miracle that is!—and I vowed (once again) to not let school papers pile up on the dining room table.

But now, like me, maybe you’re here in the second week of January, staring down Quitters Day.

Maybe you’ve already quit. You tried the new thing, but it was just too hard. Maybe your plans were too ambitious. You didn’t have the support you needed in order to make it a success. Maybe you’re quietly hoping someone will see you struggling, and step in and give you permission to quit, even though you do have the right plan and the all the resources you need—you simply don’t have the willpower. Quitters Day might be coming along at just the right time.

Our inability to keep up with small things like New Year’s resolutions is a good reminder that we fail at the big thing of being human more often than we might like. Our sinful human nature continually drags us down and separates us from our Creator and from one another. We start out—from the very beginning—on Quitters Day. And there’s nothing we can do about it.

Laundry baskets in the living room and school papers on the dining room table are a minor annoyance. The sin that clings so closely is a soul-crushing, spirit-killing reality, confronting us with our own selfish choices and greed, or the anger that lashes out uncontrollably at those we claim to love, or the covetous desire for things that do not belong to us. We find ourselves, along with St. Paul, bemoaning, "I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate... I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.” (Romans 7:15-19 ESV)

On our own, we are unable to do the good things we know God desires of us—to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God (Micah 6:8); to love God with our whole heart and soul and strength and mind, and to love our neighbor as ourself (Luke 10:27).

On our own, we are lost, stuck in a pit, and in need of a Savior. And thanks be to God, we have One in Christ Jesus!

I waited patiently for the Lord;
    he inclined to me and heard my cry.
He drew me up from the pit of destruction,
    out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock,
    making my steps secure.
He put a new song in my mouth,
    a song of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear,
    and put their trust in the Lord. (Psalm 40:1-3 ESV)

So here’s an idea for Quitters Day: Quit trying to save yourself. Quit trying to patch things up and make it all look okay, while sitting in your own pit of destruction. Quit trying to climb out of that miry bog, when you know—you do know, don’t you?—that Jesus alone is the One who can bring you new life.

Wake up each morning—Quitters Day included—and make the sign of the cross to remember that you are baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection. New life is yours because He died and rose again. Then joyfully start a new day, and sing a new song of praise to our God.

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