What Really Matters
I’m a big fan of the New Year. I love the invitation to pause and pay attention to how I am living. I enjoy an opportunity to notice what and who I am prioritizing. The nudge to notice how I am spending my time, energy, and resources feels helpful to me.
My favorite practice of the New Year is to get alone, get quiet, get with God and spend some time just reflecting on the past year. I like to move through each month, one at a time, and consider what happened and how it went. This year, I made a cup of tea, curled up with my dogs, and scrolled month by month through the photos on my phone.
I took some time to just appreciate the moments that I logged in 2023. I paid attention to the people, places, and priorities that seemed to surface most often. I gave thanks for the good and I acknowledged the challenges.
Then I used a worksheet I found online and did a little prayerful processing as I looked back at 2023 and ahead to 2024.
I didn’t set a word of the year. I didn’t even make any resolutions. But here’s what I noticed…
Our moments matter.
Our everyday minutes are the building blocks of our lives.
What we give our time, energy, and attention to every day impact our life.
I just want to offer you a question to consider in these early days of 2024.
Are you investing in what matters?
I ask this with no condemnation and no critique. I’m not even suggesting that you are or that you aren’t. What I’m inviting you to do is just consider the question with God.
Bring it before him. Hold it open. Offer it up to him. And spend the next days just listening with your Holy Spirit to what he might be saying to you or showing you.
I think God is so much more creative, generous, kind, compassionate, merciful, good, and engaged than we can even begin to imagine. He genuinely cares and wants to be a part of your everyday life.
He isn’t a dictator or a tyrant. He isn’t angry or abusive. He isn’t distant.
I am not asking you to bring this question in front of God so that you can feel conviction, shame, guilt, or embarrassment. I’m asking you to bring it in front of God because He is a good Father whose good way for our lives is best.
Jeremiah 29:11 NIV says “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
I believe when we make time to ask, God listens and responds. I truly believe he is faithful to point us towards what is for our good and for his glory.
Prayer
Father God, thank you that you speak to us. Help us to engage with you and to listen for you. Give us an attentiveness to the Holy Spirit alive in us. Help us to notice your promptings in and around us. Give us the desire to seek you and the patience to listen for your voice. Show us who, what, and where you’d like us to invest in this new year. We want your best for us. Amen.
Scripture Meditation
Jeremiah 29:11 NIV says “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Journal Reflection
What are the things you currently give the biggest investment of your time, energy, and attention to? How do you feel about those as you move into 2024?
Practice
You might consider asking God, “Am I investing in what matters?” Then, listen.