New Year

There’s nothing like an approaching new year for bringing out our best aspirations. Somehow everything seems doable when it’s written under a “Goals for the New Year” heading! And there’s nothing like an over-committed, unreasonable list of goals for deflating the very enthusiasm with which we made those goals.

Do your new year’s goals ever feel repetitious? Do you find yourself making the same goals year after year with little progress? It may be that the weakness isn’t so much with your resolve as it is with your plan.

My father was not raised in church. When he was in his early 20’s, someone invited him to a church service. As a result of being invited to church, Jesus changed his life forever. My dad got saved that night, ended up going to a Baptist college and met his wife (my mom). My brothers and sister and I were raised in a Christian home because somebody invited him to church.

Have you ever found yourself thinking: “I wish I had more time?” When flying back home from the East Coast, I have sometimes had the ridiculous notion—“This is going to be an awesome day! I gain three hours flying home. I have twenty-seven hours today to get everything done.”

At the beginning of the new year, you eagerly set goals to reach forward for Christ in multiple areas. Both through your goals and the early action steps you have taken, you stretched forward.

I was amused when I read a prediction offered in 1962 that reported by 1985, technology would have made so many advances, that the average workweek would be twenty-two hours, and we would only work twenty-seven weeks a year.

I hope you’ve made time over the past week or so to prayerfully evaluate needed areas of growth in your life and set some goals for this New Year. Setting goals, however, is the easy part; living them out in day-sized pieces over the coming year is the challenge.

There’s nothing like a new year to renew our passion for growth and excellence. I think, however, that in our haste to set new goals sometimes we miss careful evaluation of where we’re really at currently in some of the key areas of life.

It’s become a habit of mine—throughout the month of December, I jot down areas in which I want to grow in the new year as they come to mind. Then somewhere during the week between Christmas and New Years, I write out specific goals.

D. L. Moody said: “The longer I live the more I am convinced that godly men and women are not appreciated in our day. But their work will live after them, and there will be a greater work done after they are gone, by the influence of their lives, than when they were living.”

Each year at Lancaster Baptist Church, on the first Sunday of January, we reveal to our church family a new scriptural theme for the coming year. This theme flows out of much prayer and preparation that has taken place for six or seven months in advance of the new year.

I love the New Year for the fresh start it gives us on setting goals and making life adjustments. But in all our preparing and planning, it’s good to remember that our lives belong to God, and we are simply stewards—managers—of what He has entrusted to us.

At the start of a new year, we make goals, resolutions, or commitments. And we sincerely want to transform them into reality over the coming months.

God has put the theme of reaching forth in my heart for 2017. He has many blessings in store for us in the new year!

The final days of the year are some of my favorite—they always have been. There are many reasons that this is the case, including Christmas and extra time with family. But, more recently, this time of the year has become one of my favorites because I have found it to be a time of reflection and preparation for the new year.

A new year is a fresh start. And a fresh start is a great time to reset your priorities. What’s really important? And what’s just preferred? I would suggest seven areas of importance that you would consider and work into your routines in this coming year:

The week between Christmas and New Year’s has long been claimed territory on my calendar for goal setting. In the weeks previous, I’ve jotted down general ideas for goals for the New Year, but on this week, I prayerfully finalize these goals.

No one begins the New Year with aspirations to quit. We want to finish the year well, and we want to finish our life course well.

One of the things we must do to stay alive is eat! Along with air, water, and sleep, our bodies need food. The nutrients contained in the food we eat keep us healthy and strong. If we neglect to nourish our physical bodies, our health will inevitably decline. The human soul works the same way! We must regularly feed on God’s Word to stay alive and spiritually healthy. We must continually and purposefully nurture our souls with the Word of God.