There is something about a new year. On one hand, nothing much changes – we wake up on January 2nd and do the same things we’ve been doing. On the other hand, there is something about a new year where one hopes for a fresh start, which is why many people make “New Year’s resolutions.”
One can have a fresh start any day or any moment, but the New Year – the first day of the first month of a fresh, new year, holds promise. It’s like a clean slate.
So here are some suggestions for this fresh new year:
Exercise your gratitude muscle. Seriously. Practice being thankful and this muscle will grow. There are many practical ways to do this, because just saying, “I am going to be more grateful,” won’t necessarily work. Because … habits.
Practical tips: You can get a journal from a dollar store and put it in a place where you will see it. Put a pen beside it. Every evening, before you go to bed, write down three things (you can write more) that you’re grateful for. Or you can do this every morning (which is what I do), writing down three things that you’re grateful for from the previous day. Thank God for these things.
Ask God to help you notice the blessings in your life and be grateful. Ask Him to help you get into the habit of showing your gratitude to others.
Add more movement. If you already have a good exercise routine, that’s great! Skip to the next point. But if you don’t:
Practical tip: Add one new movement routine a day, preferably at the same time each day, for example, before breakfast, after breakfast, midday, after supper… you get the point. It could be a walk. It could be a 10-, 20- or 30-minute exercise routine with a YouTube video. (I like Team Body Project workouts – I find them wholesome and encouraging.) Movement is so important to not just your physical well-being, but your emotional and mental well-being as well.
Read the Bible. The other two points are important and will help you if you put them into practice. But this is the most important. I don’t know where I’d be without reading God’s Word daily. It encourages me, it inspires me, it convicts me, it gives me hope and reminds me of truths that are essential to my well-being. It shows me how to live.
When I, who had been an atheist, told my best friend of my new faith, she gave me a Bible and encouraged me to read it and pray every day. So I did. I actually thought everyone who claimed to follow God, read the Bible daily. It was years before I learned that that is not the case. So if that is you, someone who considers themselves to be a God-follower, then I encourage you to read His Word daily. How else are you going to know what He said, so you can follow His words? How else are you going to be reminded of hope when the world (or your personal world) is dark?
I love the word of God, but I did go through a dry period where even though I read the Bible daily, I wasn’t getting anything out of it. This is what helped me out of it:
Practical tips: I went through one book of the Bible at a time (alternating between Old and New Testaments) and went chapter by chapter, or sometimes a portion of a chapter per day, and summarized the chapter or portion that I read (I love those dollar store journals!). Summarizing the portion of Scripture that I read meant that I had to actually think about it – and that’s what made the Scriptures come alive to me again. After I did that with the entire Bible (it took some years), I got into my current habit of reading the whole Bible every year with a Bible reading plan that has me reading out of several books of the Bible every day. This is really helpful because it gives you a good feel for the whole Bible, as well as the fact that if you happen one day to be in a chapter of Numbers that is just going through a genealogy and doesn’t really speak to you, you will also be in a couple of other places where you are reading something that you find more relevant to your life. You can take that dollar-store journal and write down something that caught your attention in your reading.
Just as with having a set daily time to write in a gratitude journal, or to add some movement to your day, making a set time for reading your Bible and praying is helpful. Mine is first thing in the morning, and I don’t power on my phone until I am done. On the rare occasion that I do turn on my phone first, or even in the middle because I want to look something up or make a note, I regret it. I get sucked in to looking at messages, etc., or even scrolling. And then my time is gone. The struggle is real. So, I try to have a pen and paper by me to make notes of what I want to look up after I finish my Bible time. I heard recently that one of our sons advised another of our sons to take his Bible app off his phone – to read an actual hard copy of a Bible, instead of one on his phone, so as not to get distracted by that time-sucking device.
Once our children could read, we gave them their own Bibles and had them read it as part of their daily routine. I remember one incident when one of them asked, “Mom, can I go on the computer?” “Have you read your Bible?” was my response. The offspring rolled his eyes and headed to his room to read his Bible. “I know you are only doing this because I am making you,” I said as he went down the hall. “But I also make you brush your teeth every day because it’s good for you. Reading the Bible every day is the best possible habit I can give you. I have no apologies.” (Some of our children have thanked me in their adulthood, for that habit.)
It is important to remember that if you start one (or all) of these daily practices, and then stop for whatever reason, you can always just start again. Really. Because it’s not just every new year that’s a fresh start, but every new day.
Let me know how it goes.
