It’s the second day of a new year, and our resolutions may have already gone by the wayside. Most eventually do.

Part of the problem is that we reach too high. It’s like pushing a food tray along a cafeteria line and piling more on our trays than we could ever eat.

The temptation to over-resolve happens frequently in these categories, which are the most popular resolutions people make:

• to lose weight
• to stop smoking
• to get out of debt
• to exercise more
• to eat better
• to save money

It’s interesting that this list of six is really just two:

• Improving health
• Improving finances

Apparently these are the areas in which most people need the most change. And we can boil down these two even further, to only one: Giving God control of our lives. If we resolve to do this, he’ll help us with the other two… or six… or ten.

I remember reading the dramatic testimony of Becky Tirabassi. She’d been a “bad girl” for years before connecting with Jesus Christ, and after making a resolution to spend one hour each day seeking him, her life turned around. Years later an interviewer said, “How do you stay so trim and fit as you get older?”

Her response: “Have you forgotten I spend an hour a day with the Lord?”

In other words, regular time with God was what helped her succeed in the other areas of her life. Scripture corroborates that, telling us if we put him first, everything we need to live successfully will come to us, through him.

The trouble is, we resolve to submit to God but then do it the full-cafeteria-tray way. How big are our desires compared to the size of what we can actually do? We need to remember that progress is made using the same trick that works in keeping any resolution: doing it in bits and pieces.

A first step to letting God have control might be to spend 3 minutes breathing out a prayer as we sit on the edge of the bed each morning. If our first conscious thoughts are directed toward God, we’re off to a good start. By the end of the week we’ve spent 21 minutes in prayer, and by the end of the month, 1½ hours. That small resolve will yield big spiritual gains.

Or maybe submitting to God means reading the Bible in a year, but that might be too much spiritual food on our cafeteria tray. It would be better to tackle smaller amounts, say reading from an open Bible on the bathroom sink while getting ready for the day. It might be just a few minutes, but it would be regular and would amount to a growing appetite for God’s ways.

Pollsters tell us fewer and fewer people make resolutions each year; last year 68% made none. And of the 32% who tried, more than half failed.

But why line up with those negative statistics? Spiritual resolutions, no matter how small, can ultimately lead to life-changing results.

“Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.” (Matthew 6:33)