What Are Your Goals for the New Year?

Should we have New Year’s resolutions? They can be positive and negative. God wants us to have a vision for the future. The problem with some New Year’s resolutions is that we can get this attitude that we have to keep up with the jones. I encourage you to make a New Year’s goal to improve. Every day take a step closer to your goal. The date on the calendar does not change what you carry what you carry on the inside of you. In this column, we will look at four goals for the new year. You don’t need a New Year’s resolution to get improve your life, you just need a new attitude

The first goal of the new year is to smile more. Psalm 37:4 says, “Delight yourself in the Lord,and he will give you the desires of your heart.” How can we accomplish God’s for our life? We must delight in God. He wants you to enjoy life. We are called to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Write it on your heart that every new day is the best day in the year.” Think about when the clock struck midnight, nothing changed dramatically. Yet we all felt the presence of a new season. That is because while our daily life didn’t change immediately, our perspective did.

The next goal of the new year we is to read more. The revivalist Jonathan Edwards once said, “How it comes about I know not, but I have remarked it hitherto, that at those times when I have read the Scriptures most, I have evermore been most lively and in the best frame.” What about the Scriptures causes us to be in our best state of mind? It is because God’s word is life.Consider reading the book of Proverbs. It is a great book to start with because it has 31 chapters. A chapter for each day of the month.

The following goal that I believe will be beneficial is living the let-go life. Socrates once said, “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” In the beginning of last year, our church did a study on letting go. When I think about this I am reminded of Paul and Silas. Two men preaching the good news were thrown into prison. Despite their situation, they began to praise God where they were. God began to tap His foot and an earthquake took place which broke their chains and opened the prison doors. Maybe someone hurt you last year, don’t take that pain into this new year, let it go. This idea of letting go does not mean that you minimize what happened, but it means that you are able to magnify your God. In spite of what Paul and Silas went through, they let it go and began to sing. I’m not saying we forget what happened, I’m saying we remember our God.

Last but not least, have a goal to keep moving forward.Maybe you feel beat down by this past year. Paul and Silas were beaten with rods and still sang in worship to God. Sometimes you have to keep your song in your heart. Keep singing . Keep praying. Paul told the Church in Philippi, “Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on [h]so that I may lay hold of that [i]for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:12). Our ultimate prize is to know Christ.

Make this New Year a time where you smile and read more. Give your burdens to God. Let’s become like Paul and Silas, even when it is midnight and darkness is around us, we will keep trusting and keep worshiping. A new year allows for a change in perspective. Remember what Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “…every new day is the best day in the year.”