Right about now is when it starts to get even harder to put one step in front of the other toward those hopes of yours.
Because it’s now the second week of January.
And the research says that “80% of people forget their resolutions by January 12,” and the health app Strava, analyzing more than 98.3 million uploaded data points, even goes far to dub January 19, just around the corner, “Quitter’s Day.”
You don’t have to work to become someone better to get to be loved — you’re already loved, so you get to become the someone you were always made to be.
And sure — there’s a part of you that does really want do that thing in the New Year, who wants to go to bed earlier, pray far more often, get outside and move your body, sort through the closets, tackle the garage, the piles of paperwork, write that book, do that project that you’ve been saying forever that you’re really going to do — that big thing that feels like an impossible thing.
And there’s another very real and honest part of you that really doesn’t want to do any of that at all — for a myriad of very valid and tender reasons.
Wherever you land, it’s true, and deep relief: You’re not under any obligation to prove your worth — you’re under a reign of grace and underneath everything are God’s everlasting arms. You don’t have to work to become someone better to get to be loved — you’re already loved, so you get to become the someone you were always made to be.
You get to do hard and holy things because they are the next thing —- to get to the most fulfilling things.
You get to do hard and holy things — because there’s no other way to get to the happy and holy things.
You know, we wrote it up there on the chalkboard in the kitchen years ago, and we all memorized it, because it’s true, and it’s hard, but there’s a brave hope in it:
Life holds Pain — and you get to choose what kind of pain you hold: either the Pain of Discipline or the Pain of Disappointment.
Life holds Pain — and you get to choose what kind of pain you hold: either the Pain of Discipline or the Pain of Disappointment.
Nothing happens without discipline. No music gets played without discipline. No games get won. No finish lines get crossed. No freedom gets tasted. And you want that freedom.
And yet honestly? Forget “New year, New resolutions, New you.” What we need more than possessing a bunch of resolutions in hand, is to actually be a person who is resolved.
What you need more than splashy resolutions, is steady rhythms.
Which has me returning again and again this second week of January of that old cahoot who ran in his rubber boots.
Weren’t too many of anybody at all who believed the old guy could at all.
What you need more than splashy resolutions, is steady rhythms.
The kids and I read about the old guy one night after supper years ago as the dishwasher moaned away, crumbs still across the counter.
How the old guy ran for 544 miles — straight. Let that sink in. His name was Cliff Young and he wasn’t that young anymore. He was 61 years old. He was a farmer. Our boys had smiled big.
Mr. Young had showed up for the race in his Osh Kosh overalls and with his workboots on, with galoshes over top. Just in case it rained.
He had no Nike sponsorship.
He had no wife – hadn’t had one ever. Lived with his mother. Never ran in any kind of race before. Never ran a 5 mile race, or a half-marathon, not even a marathon.
But there he was standing in his workboots at the starting line of an ultra-marathon, the most gruelling marathon in the world, a 544 mile marathon.
Try wrapping your head around pounding the concrete with one foot after another for 544 endless, stretching miles. They don’t measure races like that in yards – but in zip codes.
First thing Cliff did was take out his teeth. Said his false teeth rattled when he ran.
Said he grew up on a farm with sheep and no four wheelers, no horses, so the only way to round up sheep was on the run. Sometimes the best training for the really big things is just the everyday things.
Sometimes the best training for the really big things is just the everyday things.
That’s what Cliff said: “Whenever the storms would roll in, I’d have to go run and round up the sheep.” 2,000 head of sheep. 2,000 acres of land.
“Sometimes I’d have to run those sheep for two or three days. I can run this race; it’s only two more days. Five days. I’ve run sheep for three.”
“Got any backers?” Reporters had shoved their microphones around old Cliff like a spike belt.
“No….” Cliff slipped his hands into his overall pockets.
“Then you can’t run.”
Cliff looked down at his boots. Does man need backers or does a man need to believe? What you believe— is what is actually backing you.
The other runners, all under a buffed 30 years of age, they take off like pumped shots from that starting line. And scruffy old Cliff staggers forward.
He doesn’t run. He shuffles, more like it. Straight back. Arms dangling. Feet awkwardly shuffling along.
Cliff eats dust. For 18 hours, the racers blow down the road, far down the road, and old Cliff just shuffles on behind.
What you believe— is what is actually backing you.
Come the pitch black of night, the runners in their $400 ergonomic Nikes and Adidas, lay down by the roadside to sleep, because that was the conventional plan to win an ultra-marathon, to run 544 straight miles: 18 hours of running, 6 hours of sleeping, rinse and repeat for 5 days, 6 days, 7 days.
The dark falls in. Runners sleep. Cameras get turned off. Reporters go to bed.
And yet — through the black night, one 61-year-old man, far, far behind the others, keeps shuffling on, one foot in front of the other.
Cliff Young ran on through the night –and you better believe it: There is a Light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not master it and the dark of discouragement that threatens doesn’t master the blazing light of Jesus at the center, the night of impossible that plunges you deep into hopelessness doesn’t go deeper than the love of your Jesus already for you, and there is no place His light won’t go to find you, to save you, to hold you.
Darkness can never travel as fast as Light. No matter how bad things get, no matter how black the dark seeps in, no matter the depths of the night — the dark can never travel as fast as Light. The Light is always there first, waiting to shatter the dark.
You can always hold His Word like a ball of light right there your hand, right up there next to your warming heart and you can always count on it: Jesus is bendable Light, warmth around every unexpected corner.
The darkness doesn’t understand the light, doesn’t comprehend the light, doesn’t get the light, doesn’t overcome the light, doesn’t master the light.
Cliff Young runs on through the dark — because he didn’t know you were supposed to stop.
He had no idea that the accepted way professional runners approached an ultra-marathon race was to run 18 hours, sleep 6, for 7 days straight. But Cliff Young didn’t know that. He didn’t know the accepted way. He only knew what he did regularly back home, the way he had always done it: You run on through the dark.
The race isn’t won by the big resolutions, but by the slow and steady rhythms. A steady rhythm outruns all the splashy resolutions.
Turns out that when Cliff Young said he gathered sheep around his farm for three days, he meant he’d run across 2,000 acres of farmland for three days straight without stopping or sleeping, without the dark ever stopping him. You gathered sheep by running through the dark.
So along the endless stretches of highway, a tiny shadow of an old man shuffled along, one foot after another, right through the heat, right through the night. Cliff gained ground.
Cliff gained ground because he didn’t lose ground to the dark. Cliff gained ground because he just kept on pressing through the dark.
And somewhere at the outset of the night, Cliff Young in his overalls, he shuffled passed the toned runners half his age. And by the morning light, teethless Cliff Young who wasn’t really quite that young at all, he was a tiny shadow — far, far ahead of the professional athletes.
For five days and fifteen hours, and four minutes straight, Cliff Young ran, never once stopping for the dark – never stopping until the old sheep farmer crossed the finish line – First. He crossed the finish line first.
Beating a world record.
By two. whole. days.
The second place runner crossed the finish line 9 hours after Cliff Young and that steady slow shuffle of his.
The enduring shuffle of doing the next hard and holy and small thing — will win everything in the end.
That shuffle of Cliff Young would become known worldwide in running circles as the “Cliff Young Shuffle” — or the “Ultra Shuffle,” the unconventional way you run an ultra-marathon. A way of moving that can keep on going and going, a way of running that doesn’t over-expend energy, “that allowed runners to maintain a steady pace for long distances without exhausting their leg muscles.”
How do you do the Young Shuffle? After analyzing Cliff Young’s unconventional shuffle that won ultra-marathons of hundreds of miles, running experts concluded: “To do the Young Shuffle, you maintain a relaxed posture, keep your knees low, and shuffle your feet along the ground in a smooth, gliding motion. It’s less about speed and more about efficiency and endurance.”
The point is: The race isn’t won by the big resolutions, but by the slow and steady rhythms. A steady rhythm outruns all the splashy resolutions.
If you don’t overstride – you can overcome.
The same sure and steady rhythms, day in and day out – the making of the bed, followed by the opening of the Word, followed by the journaling of the heart, followed by the moving of the body — just this enduring shuffle of doing the next hard and holy and small thing — will win everything in the end.
Habit stacking — a daily rhythm of one small thing that always follows the next small thing — is it’s own kind of ultra-shuffle that wins the race.
The Young Shuffle is proof: If you don’t overstride – you can overcome.
Because: Resolutions won’t get you out of January — only a sacred, steady rhythm of grace can go the distance.
If we need to be more resolved then we need resolutions, the greatest resolve is to be re-solved and solved again by the only solution to every problem: grace.
Grace to get up again. Grace to begin again. Grace to run through the dark again, grace to stack the habits again, grace to still be accepted and loved again and again and again, grace to still just keep shuffling on, held by Love Himself who promises to carry you the whole way through.
When they handed old Cliff Young his $10,000 prize , he said he hadn’t known there was a prize. Said he’d just run for the wonder of it. Said that all the other runners had worked hard too. So Cliff Young waited at the finish line and handed each of the runners an equal share of the 10K.
While others run fast, you can just shuffle forward with perseverance.
While others impress, you can simply press on.
While others stop for the dark, you can keep on running through the dark.
And then the old cahoot in boots walked a way without a penny for the race — but with all the hearts of whole world.
While others run fast, you can just shuffle forward with perseverance.
While others impress, you can simply press on.
While others stop for the dark, you can keep on running through the dark.
The race is always won by those who have a steady rhythm that keeps running on through the dark.
Could be the year to pull a Cliff Young.
When those reporters asked Old Cliff that afterward, what had kept him running through the nights, Cliff had said, “I imagined I was outrunning a storm to gather up my sheep.”
And in the early January that carry all kinds of challenging dark, there’s a way to rest easy, while easily moving forward.
Because right beside you is One who mastered the dark and overcame the storm to gather every single one of His sheep and now there is a Light Who shines in the darkness and there isn’t a darkness in the world that can ever overcome it.
And you can keep in step with Him, when you simply keep this steady rhythm of the pace of grace.
This May be The Year to Pull A Cliff Young Shuffle & purpose to:
… just for example — you can fill in each of these 12 prompts, just one for each month of 2024, however you are led of the Lord, so write down what works for you, such as:
January: Embrace: Imperfect.
This is The Year to be held by the arms of grace, not to any standard of perfection.
February: Engage: Silence — not screens.
This is The Year to engage silences regularly & retreat to the “back side of the wilderness.” Because when you do not need to be seen or heard — you can see and hear in desperately needed ways.
You find your true self when you look for your reflection in the eyes of souls — and not the glare of screens.
March: Be: still.
Be small. Be Loved. Beloved.
Let yourself be loved anyway He wants to love you. God is always, always good & you are always, always, always. loved.
Be still …. & know.
April: Believe: in Him for imposs-ABLE things.
Believe in Him who makes the ridiculously impossible into the miraculously possible,
the unbelievable into the you-better-believe-it,
the never into the now.
Be the brave people who pray it bold in the space between the end of one year & the beginning of a New Year: BUT GOD.
“Ours is the God who whispers: “With Me nothing, Nothing, NOTHING is impossible.“
Believe in Him for impossABLE things — because as long Emmanuel, God is with us & we are with God: nothing is impossible.
Believe in Him for improbable, implausible, impractical, impossABLE things.
May: Break: idols — or they will break you.
Break free, break out of ruts, break idols — or they will break you.
June: Daily: 3 for 10:
These 3 for 10 everyday: Word In. Work Out. Work Plan.
It’s not what you do every now and then, but what you do everyday, that changes everything.
Word in: Get into God’s Word for 10 minutes and let it get into you.
Work out: Work out. Even 10 minutes of moving is better than nothing.
Work plan: Write out the Work Plan — even just 3 things. And then just start: 10 minutes working the plan.
July: Do: Less. Pray More.
More than your doing hands, God wants your bended knees.
August: Let Go: of the Outcome.
Come completely committed to the process — and completely let go of the outcome.
In the middle of things seemingly not working out for us —- God is working out something in us.
September: Learn: Endurance.
Endure to do Hard & Holy Things. Break the idols of ease — or they will break you.
October: Live: Given.
Because #LoveGives.
Because God so loved He gave.
Because Living is Giving.
November: Give:
It
Forward
Today — 3 times a day.
Give It Forward Today & be the #GIFT — give an act of grace forward, 3 times a day. Be a #GIFTivst
It’s the Giftivists are the activists who believe that radical acts of generosity counter radical acts of inhumanity. #GIFTivst
December: Grow: Brave. Grow in Grace
Grow Brave. Grow in Grace. Which is basically the same thing.
Sooooo…. maybe take some time to pray and write down how the Lord is speaking to you about your 2024 — then slip the SOULutions into a frame or hang somewhere, to bring you back, again and again, to your Cliff Young Shuffle Year of just moving forward with grace.
Resolutions won’t get you out of January — only a sacred, steady rhythm of grace can go the distance.
Just: If we need to be more resolved then we need resolutions, the greatest resolve is to be re-solved and solved again by the only solution to every problem: grace.
Simply click here for all of these free printables for 2024, plus a whole library of free tools:
