I have spent the first part of this week looking at the past year, hat has worked and what has not. I have spent time resting in who my Father made me to be and in His love for me. I have focused my mind on the things that I know restore me. Today I want to start to look forward. I want to look at some personal goals that I have for the New Year. I don’t like to call them resolutions as resolutions are made to be broken. These are things I want to do to be a better me.
- I want to get healthier. Oh I’d love to lose weight but to me saying I am going to lose weight sounds like a resolution. I don’t want just losing weight to be my focus but I want to exercise more and to eat better. If weight loss comes that will be the bonus.
- I want to be more consistent in my creativity. I think creativity fuels my heart and my soul. I am a better person when I am tapping in to my creativity.
- I want to read more. I have set goals of a book a month in the past and attained them but it’s been a couple of years since I have done this. I think it’s good for my mind if I keep reading.
- And my main focus is my spiritual goals. I will stay in the word in some way.
I am still ironing out how my spiritual goals will look this year and the direction for Restore. I’d love to hear from you if you had an idea for the direction you would like for me to take. But I also have reading that I do and studying that is for no one but me and Jesus. In the past I have read the Bible through. This past year I was listening to the Bible through in the NLT. For study I usually start with the ESV and then I will read other translations to get clearer understanding of scripture but listening has been just for me and Jesus. One year I chose to read through the gospels every month and another year I read through them every quarter of the year in different translations. Did you know there are 89 chapters in the four gospels? That is perfect for reading a chapter a day for 3 months.
What are your goals for the year? If you are looking for resources to read the Bible through, let me suggest the Youversion app. I use Youversion every day in my reading. I will read short devotional plans and I will let it keep my place on my Bible reading plan. Don’t get me wrong I do still love to get my Bible in my hands but I will read in the app a lot too and it tends to keep me on track. Also there is a podcast by Tara Leigh Cobble called The Bible Recap. She will give you a reading for the day and then you can listen to her recap what you read. It is a great tool for understanding. She will point things out in scripture that I just simply did not see there.
The most important thing is to get into scripture.
“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” Hebrews 4:12
Don’t choose reading your Bible through in a year just to read the Bible through in a year. If you choose just one verse a day, or one Psalm a day or to read through the gospels in a month or 89 days, read it with intentionality. I used to set the goals and then get caught up in the goals. What is most important to me now is to read and then let it do its work in me.
“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” James 1:22
The bottom line is I can read scripture every day to check off the box, but that is not what I want. I want to read scripture daily to let it change me, I want to keep my spiritual life healthy just as much as I want my physical life and my creative life and my mind to be healthy. I hope this week you have been looking at what goals you can set for the New Year too.
Restore 