Looking Ahead to When You’ll Look Back on 2024
We’re not even two weeks deep into 2024, but I’m guessing many of you have already broken one or two of your New Yeart’s resolutions. If you have, there’s no reason to beat yourself up. (A good resolution would be to stop beating yourself up.) Only eight percent of those who make New Year’s resolutions keep them. Only eight percent! (That’s low, but it’s still better than the percentage of politicians who keep their campaign promises.)
Let me offer you two solutions. First, I suggest you make the right resolutions. For example, here are the resolutions I made in 2023—and I kept all of them.
- I will not eat any food containing sauerkraut.
- I will not engage in international drug smuggling.
- I will not learn to play the accordion.
- I will not annoy my wife by saying easy-peasy.
See my approach? Set the bar low and they are easy-peasy. (Sorry, Mary. That resolution has 2023.)
My second solution is a better approach. Set goals instead. A goal is something you aim for. You may not hit it every time, but you keep pressing on. And as you press on, that goal gets closer and closer.
Go ahead and set those goals related to the number of books read and the number of pounds lost. Those are fine but include goals that honor Christ. Goals that deepen, even challenge your walk with Christ. Goals that let others see Jesus in you. And while you’re at it, see that those “non-spiritual” goals you set are also done to honor Christ.
Once you’ve got your goals in place, let me encourage you to do one more thing. Commit those goals to God. Ask Him to empower you to lose the wight, be disciplined, walk closer with Jesus, and so forth. In all these things, you can reflect Christ and let Him be seen.
“Whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Col. 3:17).
At the outset, commit your goals to God and watch what He does throughout the year.
In Acts 13, Paul and Barnabas received a commission to take a mission trip. As the church of Antioch was praying, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them” (Acts 13:2). And off they went. We don’t have an exact time frame, but this mission trip was probably around a year long. They came back to Antioch and gave the first-ever mission report.
“From there they sailed back to Antioch where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work they had now completed. After they arrived and gathered the church together, they reported everything God had done with them and that he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles. And they spent a considerable time with the disciples” (Acts 14:26-28).
In this description of events, it’s easy to pass over one phrase, but it’s that one phrase I want us to focus on.
“… Antioch where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work they had now completed.”
As they came to the end of their missionary travels, it was recognized that great work they did had been given to them by God and had been commended to the grace of God. In other words, they knew they needed God’s grace to do this work. At the outset, they trusted their work to God and relied on His grace to get them through. And now, they could look back and see that the very work they had commended to God’s grace has been achieved by God’s grace!
Let’s do the same. Let’s commend our plans and goals to the grace of God. Because it is only by His grace that you or I can reach our goals and do that which honors Him.
Fast forward to January 1, 2025. It’s a holiday and you’re resting at home in your jammies. Before you set some goals for 2025, you look back to see that the goals you set and commended to the grace of God in 2024 were reached. Give yourself a true reason to celebrate that day. Celebrate the grace of God. Celebrate the way He worked in your life and through your life.
Commend your work, your goals, and your life to the grace of God.
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