Don’t Forget Your Faith When Setting New Year’s Resolutions This Year
New Years is only a couple of days away! Will you be one of the millions of Americans who set New Year’s resolutions this year?
Personally, I love goal-setting, though I don’t generally wait until January 1st to do it. Seems like I always have a to-do list a mile long of all of the things I want to accomplish, between blogging, home, relationships and bettering myself personally!
According to this article on nielson.com, the most popular New Year’s Resolution for 2015 was “stay fit and healthy,” followed closely by “lose weight,” “enjoy life to the fullest,” and “spend less, save more.”
One thing you’ll notice from lists like these, however, is that faith-based New Year’s Resolutions rarely make the list. Which is sad, considering our spiritual life should be the MOST important part of our lives by far!
So this year, whether you want to lose weight, save money, get organized or anything else–that’s great! But don’t forget to set a few Christian New Year’s Resolutions as well.
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Not sure what types of Christian New Year’s Resolutions to set?
Why not try one of these:
- Read your Bible 15 minutes a day, 5 days a week
- Create a prayer list of 3-7 names and pray for each person every morning
- Attend church every Sunday without fail
- Increase your tithing to 10% every week
- Join or create a Bible study with other believers
- Do one random act of kindness a week for the entire year
- Join the church choir and attend practices faithfully
- Cultivate friendships with three other Godly women
- Find a mentor, or become a mentor to someone else
- Sign up to volunteer at church in some capacity
- Read through the entire Bible in one year
Don’t get all legalistic about it, of course.
Curious what types of faith-based goals OTHER people are setting?
While researching for this post, I reached out to several well-known Christian bloggers, authors and speakers to find out what types of faith-based New Year’s Resolutions they were making for 2016, and this is what they had to say:
“Thinking about important stuff–that’s my goal for 2016! I want to drown out the noise of the news and social media by filling my mind with Good Stuff. So I’m going to add to my devotional time by rereading all of C.S. Lewis, and then I’m going to buy a really good journal to write down the thoughts that he inspires!”
–Sheila Wray Gregoire, To Love Honor and Vacuum
“I plan to improve my faith in the new year by seeking instead of striving. It’s so easy to spend our time trying when God really just wants us to rest in Him.”
–Kristen Welch, We are THAT Family
“Focus first on God. Let the rest fall into place once that is your priority.”
–Kim Sorgius, Not Consumed
“I actually have on my 2016 Goals List a separate section dedicated to improving my spiritual life and I recommend everyone making it a separate area on his or her goals list. I’m planning to read at least two books that are geared towards diving deeper in faith and I plan to attend at least one spiritual retreat. I also plan to give of my time by volunteering at least once at my church – with three kids ages 3 and under, volunteering is a bit of a challenge.”
–Jessi Fearon, Real Life on a Budget
“I plan to improve my faith in 2016 by being intentional –seeking God in prayer before getting out of bed and starting my day, so I get His wisdom and perspective on what my priorities for the day should be, and what REALLY matters.”
–Kathie Morrissey, The Character Corner
“I hope to improve my faith by spending more time with HIM! The movie War Room really moved me this year, it is so easy to get caught up in so many things that we do not truly take the time to have the one on one time with Jesus! The kind of time that isn’t seen but is there, the hidden moments you spend talking and praying to the Lord. It is so easy for that to get lost even for Christians, I long to be in HIS presence more!”
Angela Richter, Together with Family
“This year I want to be intentional about taking monthly personal retreats. I’ve seen great spiritual growth through deliberate times of reflection and evaluation.”
–Arabah Joy, Arabah Joy
“Galatians 2:10 says, ‘For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.’ In 2016, I am purposing to improve my faith by kneeling as Jesus knelt to wash the feet of those He has called me to serve. I am praying for eyes to see as Jesus sees so that I can walk as He intends for me to walk.”
–Leigh Ann Dutton, Intentional By Grace
What New Year’s Resolutions will you be making this year? Will you be making any faith-based ones?
First, THANK YOU for including me! 🙂 and second, I just love what Kristen of We are THAT Family wrote — seek instead of strive. Something I definitely need to do more of!
Thanks for contributing! I loved reading everyone’s varied responses!
I am starting to take 10 minutes of silence (either in morning or night) to just make sure I am not doing all the talking when it comes to prayer…so far I’m amazed to see how much more silence I need 🙂
I need to do this too. Definitely not enough quiet around here!
That stood out to my so much seeking instead of striving. I think that is exactly what the Lord is laying on my heart for me to remember as I write out my goals for 2017. It is so important to remember to seek him and ask him to show us the way instead of running after our own ways. I find that especially true in the blogging business as well.
Love visiting your blog Brittany!
Awww, thanks! And yes! I definitely know what you mean. I’m very guilty of striving instead of seeking on lots of occasions… :/
For this year, (2016) I have been reading through the Bible. I plan to do it again in 2017. I also want to try fasting regularly, but haven’t decided how often to do it. Beyond that, I have recently been setting aside 15 minutes to pray each afternoon beyond my regular prayer time, so I’d like to continue that. I like to divide my goals into categories, I.e. personal, spiritual, marriage, children/family, and business. That way I can cover the bases.
Did you make it through the whole Bible? I was thinking about reading through the Bible again for 2017, but I just read a comment from someone else and now I’m thinking about possibly reading through some material from the early church fathers instead. I’ve been meaning to get around to it for a while now, and just never have… Hmm… food for thought.
And yeah, I totally write out every different area, and then end up with like 12 goals and think, “Hmmm…. may have to pare back a bit….”
Yep, I made it through! I’m actually one day ahead, as I finish today. (the 30th!) I’m pretty excited about that.
So true about the all the different categories for goals. It’s easy to make far to many. I try to keep the goals to a minimum and not let them get out of hand. It’s so easy to write on paper, but much harder to actually get them all done.
Yay! Congrats on keeping your resolution all year long! Most people don’t.
And yeah, I think I need to prune my list. How to pick which ones to cut out though??? lol
This year one of my spiritual goals is to pray through the Psalter six times. I am really excited about this goal! I’m looking forward to connecting to the early Church tradition of using the Psalms as our prayers.
Great idea! And I love that you’re excited about it instead of like “Ugh, I should do this….” That’s how goals should be!
Thanks for this list of ideas, as well as the encouragement from other Christian women! In 2017, I’m trying to focus on my prayer life and Scripture meditation, and have developed a plan that I hope, with God’s help, to follow through on!
That’s great! It’s always easier when you have a good plan. 🙂
I love these ideas! I always need to grow spiritually, so I thought of goals related to these. I especially like the goal of reaching out to more believers to build strong relationships. Christian friends can help us stay on the right track. I haven’t done so well at being there for my Christian sisters; thanks for the reminder to consider that as an area to try and improve!
Glad you found these ideas helpful! Reaching out to others is something I could work on too 🙂