The new year is an interesting time – because it is somewhat of an arbitrary holiday; we are not celebrating a person or a great historical event. All we’re really celebrating, other than the fact that the Earth went all the way around the sun and now we have to go replace our calendars…

The value of the new year is that it gives us a gauge to measure by, it gives us perspective, and perspective helps us to see things more clearly.

The new year also comes with a sense of a new beginning – something which, as Christians, we can have a sense of each and every day because of God’s grace.

I’m not in the habit of making New Year’s resolutions, but there is one thing I do every year, which I find helpful: I sit down and write a list of things which I would like to see in one year from now. These are things which are not yet reality, but things which I would like to see become reality. Having written these things down, I keep that list on my desk, and pray and plan over these things until they become reality. Having this list helps direct my prayers and my focus, my time and my energy.

Zig Ziglar famously said: “If you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it every time.”

We have a big God, with whom all things are possible (Mark 10:27) – a God who is able to do exceedingly, abundantly more than we can ask or imagine. (Ephesians 3:20). I encourage you to dream and pray in faith for those things which are yet unseen. Write them down, so that you won’t quickly forget them because of the tyranny of the urgent that creeps into our lives. At the end of the year, you will find yourself with a list of things which God has done.