Reflections For the New Year

1/1/2025

Written by: Frieda Dowler

The lights and decorations are packed away until next Christmas and the festivities have ceased. A new year has begun.

For many, it’s a time to look toward the future and make some plans. Most of those plans are centered on things we have the ability to control, our health, our habits, our finances, or things we’ve let slide through the holidays. And then there are the things we can’t control. How do we face the future of those things?

January is called the Monday of Months, meaning it’s a real thing to suffer depression on Mondays and the month of January is a month of Mondays. Add to that, the holiday let down, Christmas overspending reality, and mid-winter weather, plus the least shiny time of year with less sunlight.

For the next two months, we sigh as the days grow shorter and colder. It’s important to pay attention to things that will help get us through them. Because they will pass and by early spring, we will have gotten through them.

I personally don’t mind hibernating a little. I face the reality of darker, shorter days and take this time to be reflective. I consider it important for spiritual growth. I use this time to do a life assessment and pray for a change in areas where God prompts me. I often get a “theme” verse for the year and it serves as a reminder of that time of reflection.

If you’re looking for a starting point for reflection, Paul wrote a checklist to the Galatians in the New Testament scriptures. It’s a good way to evaluate our spiritual growth. I like the way Eugene Peterson explains it in the modern language of The Message Bible.

“But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard — things like:

· affection for others
· exuberance about life
· serenity
· a willingness to stick with things
· a sense of compassion in the heart
· a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people
· loyal commitments
· not needing to force our way in life
· able to marshal and direct our energies wisely” Gal. 5: 22-23 The Message

This checklist helps determine how present God is in our lives. In my life, throughout the years, each one has popped up. I ask God to show me how that particular fruit can be developed in me.

Because January is a quiet time of the year, it allows me to come closer to God’s Holy Spirit and feel the nudge toward change. I listen to what I’m sensing and I reflect on my ways. What’s stealing the fruit of the spirit from me? How can I develop it? Taking time to reflect and to be know that I need change is the first step. The consecutive steps are a collaborative effort between the Holy Spirit and me. It gives me a goal and guide for the year.

If my reflection needs more tangible guidance, I can look a few verses up in Galatians 5. It’s another checklist. This is a list of things that rob us of the Holy Spirit:

“It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time:

· repetitive, loveless, cheap sex
· a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage,
· lustful pleasures, frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness
· trinket gods [idolatry],
· magic show religion [sorcery],
· paranoid loneliness,
· cutthroat competition,
· all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants,
· a brutal temper, taking time
· an impotence to love or be loved [selfish ambition],
· divided homes and divided lives,
· small-minded and lopsided pursuits,
· the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival,
· uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions,
· ugly parodies of community. I could go on.” Gal. 5: 19–21a The Message.

Rather than dread January, embrace it and use the time to draw close to God because when we do, he promises to draw close to us.

Give God permission to guide your life. Take the time to listen to the Holy Spirit. Commit to letting your action show you are living by the power of the Holy Spirit. Then, I believe January will be easier on you.

“Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives.” Gal. 5: 24–25 The Message.