Goals for the New Year

Goals are good and we all need them. Keeping them and following through is a whole other story. I have certain goals in mind for the New Year and hopefully with the Lord’s help will accomplish many of them. There are many areas in my life that I need to improve upon. One of which is my relationship with the Lord. This one really never goes away for we should all be striving for a deeper, closer relationship with our Heavenly Father.

In John Piper’s book “Don’t Waste Your Life” he says this: We waste our lives when we do not pray and think and dream and plan and work toward magnifying God in all spheres of life. God created us for this: to live our lives in a way that makes him look more like the greatness and the beauty and the infinite worth that he really is.

This year I plan to take a close look at time wasters in my life. What do I spend my time doing most? What keeps me from magnifying God in all spheres of my life? As I am sitting here writing this, I can already think of many things that keep me from Him. It’s time to start making that list and writing down all that would keep me from enjoying my Lord and Savior most.

May you all have a blessed New Year! ~ Sharlyn Eddy

Goals for the New Year

I don't have to think very long and hard to come up with my goal for the new year: Stop living in fear. I want to do a Scripture study of fear: the proper fear of the Lord, the sinful fear of failure, the suffocating fear of allowing fear to dominate my thinking and my actions. The Lord has been bringing this to my attention this past fall and I realize now how many good intentions never materialize into good deeds because of how I allow fear to keep me from acting in faith. The other day as I was cleaning the living room I had the opportunity to listen to an on-line message by C. J. Mahaney on the fear of man. He gave an example of a gal from Covenant life church who had written to him confessing that she had wanted to make a meal for his family after his father passed away but didn't follow through because she wanted it to be so perfect that she never even tried. Bingo. The Holy Spirit stopped me as I was dusting. I can so relate to this sister. I experience this paralyzing fear more than I care to realize. I know this fear is not of the Lord but I have lived with it so long that it almost seems normal. But God is so good to give me fresh grace and help in my time of need. With God's help I have been asking Him to strengthen me to do those things that I am afraid of. Not only that, I am asking Him to meet me as I study and pray about this ongoing sin in my life and bring truth to bear upon my deceived thinking. I know that this is the one thing that the Lord would have me focus my attention on as the new year rolls around. I appreciate your prayers and if you struggle with this please call me and I would love to pray for you as well. God is so gracious and kind to bring things to our attention that need to be addressed. The new year is a perfect time to sit down with a cup of coffee or tea and ask the Holy Spirit to bring to mind something that we can make it our goal to go after.

I have some goals and objectives posted inside my kitchen cabinet from 2005. As I reviewed them the other day it was sobering to see the goals I never achieved but also exciting to see that the Lord did make it possible for me to actually accomplish a couple of long-term goals. Praise God! I am anticipating another year of walking with the Lord and the joy that comes from being led by His Spirit. Happy New Year! Brenda Edwards

Goals for the New Year

In yesterday’s post Dr. Whitney gives an excellent list of questions to ask ourselves as the New Year approaches. I know that in my self-sufficiency my temptation would be to try to work on his list all at once. I would most likely become overwhelmed. David Powlison helps to shed some light on the fact that sometimes it may be better to take on one thing at a time.

“We are simple people. You can’t remember ten things at once. Invariably, if you could remember just ONE true thing…you’d be different. Connect one bit of Scripture to one bit of life…. Apply one relevant thing from our Redeemer to one significant scene in your story. Bring one bit of the Bible to one bit of your life….You can’t deal with it all at once. Scripture never does…. Life goes one step at a time.”

By the time I’m done making my resolution list, I normally have about twenty “Must Do’s”! Instead of trying to juggle so many things and failing in all of them or just getting by, I’ve seen that focusing on just one thing is most effective for me. Most of the time growth in one area almost always affects every other area of our lives. So rather than worrying about the twenty ways we need to grow in godliness, we can be encouraged that as we isolate just one and devote ourselves to change in that area, by the grace of God it will affect the other nineteen.

The final thing I have learned through wise examples and teaching concerning resolutions, is to get specific. “Trust God more” may be too broad of a resolution, but if we can spend some time exploring when and how we are most tempted to not trust God, we can then better choose scriptures to memorize in helping battle that particular sin and pray and plan on how to respond humbly when those times do arise. Ask God help you carry the task you sense Him calling you to. Rely on Him for strength to be diligent and faithful. Depend on Him and watch as He works! ~ Lana Calabello

Goals for the New Year

Donald Whitney writes that: “Even the most faithful to God occasionally need to pause and think about the direction of their lives. It’s so easy to bump along from one busy week to another without ever stopping to ponder where we’re going and where we should be going.” If that rings true in your life, ponder Dr. Whitney’s “10 Questions to Ask at the Start of a New Year.”


Ten Questions to Ask at the Start of a New Year

The beginning of a new year is an ideal time to stop, look up, and get our bearings. To that end, here are some questions to ask prayerfully in the presence of God.

1. What's one thing you could do this year to increase your enjoyment of God?
2. What's the most humanly impossible thing you will ask God to do this year?
3. What's the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your family life this year?
4. In which spiritual discipline do you most want to make progress this year, and what will you do about it?
5. What is the single biggest time-waster in your life, and what will you do about it this year?
6. What is the most helpful new way you could strengthen your church?
7. For whose salvation will you pray most fervently this year?
8. What's the most important way you will, by God's grace, try to make this year different from last year?
9. What one thing could you do to improve your prayer life this year?
10. What single thing that you plan to do this year will matter most in ten years? In eternity?

“Lord, may this be a year of finding you to be the All-Sufficient One.”
~ Rhonda Calabello