Happy New Year! Now What?

Always Moving Forward

Maybe you’re optimistic about a new year. This is the year you are getting married, engaged, or getting out of a bad relationship. You are going to lose some weight, perhaps even develop those washboard abs! You want to get a better position at work. There are things you want to improve around the house. You want to be more organized. You conceive your community does not have the best reputation, so you are determined to do something about it. Maybe you are going to get serious with God so you are going to read your Bible all the way through.

Maybe you are a little pessimistic. You’ve already phased out of your end-of-the-year commitments. You tried last year to get in shape, but that fell through. You planned on reading more books, reading more Bible, or getting more involved at church. Yet it was just another failed attempt. You know you need to pray more, but you never do it how you envisioned. There is a secret sin you have been dealing with for a long time and you couldn’t shake it last year, nor the year before so you may be feeling like it is just who you are. This year you just want to take it slow and deal with whatever comes at you piece by piece, not focusing on the big picture.

Whatever your plan is this year, do that — plan. Time is moving forward. You cannot stop it. You cannot barter with it to slow down. So your best best is to plan. Plan to move forward. Here is a good way to do this for your year: don’t start this month. Well, at least not entirely. How often do we start something so gung-ho, only to fizzle out not long after? Maybe that is not you, but most people I have come in contact with experience this, so here is a suggestion.

Week by Week

Write down everything you would like to accomplish this year. Then week by week in the month of January, focus on one or two goals (depending on how much you are wanting to accomplish). Go to The Lord in prayer, go to your Bible seeking wisdom and direction from The Lord and consider the costs of your ambitions. If you are feeling overwhelmed, take this same approach into the month of February, taking small baby steps (or crawls) until they build up into habits.

That does not mean be lazy. If you know you should be practicing to get to where you want to be, don’t hit that snooze button for an additional ten minutes saying to yourself “I am just taking it step-by-step.” Get up! Look for people and various things like calendars, lifestyle apps, and programs that will help you accomplish your goals. Do your research. Get serious about it. Don’t just talk about it. Challenge yourself.

Sweet Victory

The goal is to make it to the end of the year with a fully developed lifestyle, not to just start strong. “The victor ain’t the one’s that’s winning seventh inning/trophies don’t go to the one’s that got a good beginning” (Trip Lee — Sweet Victory). So how do we taste victory? It starts by realizing that anything we do or do not accomplish does not define who we are. What Christ has accomplished for us in his life, death and resurrection is where our identity is.

Trying to make a name for ourselves outside of being rooted in Christ leads to destruction. (Genesis 11:4–9)Going for that big promotion, head coaching job, or leading role in that play or movie isn’t sinful. We are called to flourish and make beautiful things in the earth. Doing it for the sake of our own names being great goes against God’s design for humanity. He desires we desire to depend on him, even in what we seem to be naturally self-sufficient with. Reading the Bible all the way through in a year for your own glory (apart from God’s) will do nothing for you. Doing it to the praise of God the Father for your end-glory will.

So for the sake of God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, persevere. Find something that you are passionate about and give it completely to The Lord. Stick to it and don’t give in. Doubt will surely come. Failure will loom. Deadlines will be missed. You will need to rest. And when that happens, keep, or redirect, your eyes to Jesus where your identity is.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. (Hebrews 12:1–3)