Her Faith Thrives

One of the things I  love about spending time with children is their delight. However, it does not take long to realize that a child’s enjoyment of good things needs to be directed.  My toddler loves books but needs instruction on how to enjoy a book without destroying it.  When she receives my instruction well, she enjoys looking at the pictures, pretending to read the words, turning the pages with precision, and fanning out the pages. 

The same is true for us. A new year can give us a new lens on life. We might see our good gifts more clearly and gain a renewed desire to steward them well. Yet like a child is in need of direction to enjoy good gifts, we as God’s children need His direction to steward the good gifts He gives us well.  For this reason, I believe the most important goals you can make will relate to your walk with God. As you walk well with Him, you will be able to steward the other areas of your life better.

I want to lay out 8 ways we can do this.  These are things that I am praying will be a part of my walk with God over the next year. My challenge to you, is to prayerfully consider the list and ask the Lord what He wants you to do.  

Commit to having a regular, meaningful time in the word. 

There is no substitute for this. This is so important that I would encourage you to plan your days around this goal. In my own walk I have found that reminding myself of this priority daily helps me look for time to get into God’s word. In this season of mothering young children it does not always happen at the same time of day or all in one sitting. However, having a defined goal of what I want to read and ponder in the word  helps me work at it throughout the day. 

Commit to reading through the Bible. 

Reading through the Bible can feel like a daunting task and truth be told, it does take a measure of discipline to do it. Nevertheless, it is absolutely worth your effort.  Understanding the greater narrative of the whole Bible will help you understand God better. It will enrich your study of smaller chunks of scripture and the richness of your experience of the preaching of God’s word. The whole Bible is inspired by God and it is amazing to see the work He does in our hearts as we simply read the whole counsel of his word. I am not suggesting that you must read through your Bible in a year but I am asking you to commit to reading through it at regular intervals whether that is a year or not.

Commit to immersing yourself in scripture in a variety of ways. 

This is one of those very understated ways to really enrich your walk with God. Over the last year I have been pleasantly surprised at how beneficial encountering scripture in a variety of ways has been. My husband leads our family in reading the Bible aloud together. He typically reads from the Psalms and a variety of passages as we explore systematic theology using the Westminster Catechism.  Over the time he has been doing this, I have grown to enjoy it more and more. Things we talk about during this time come up again at other times. It has also been enjoyable to see how thoughts from my personal quiet time dovetail well with the passages we read together.  One other way I have encountered scripture is through scripture filled children’s songs.  Since we want to expose our children to as much of the Bible as we can, we listen to this kind of music often. As a result, I am encouraged by the truths in the Bible throughout the day.  The way you immerse yourself in scripture may look very different but I encourage you to be intentional about doing it.

Commit to attending a sound local church in person. 

Like many of you, my commitment to attending a local church regularly has been tested in the last couple of years. By the grace of God, I have seen great value in this practice. This is another area where my family has experienced my husband’s wise leadership.  He has set the precedent for joyfully anticipating sitting under sound preaching of the whole counsel of scripture and we are seeing amazing fruit from this practice. One of the best outcomes is how it draws us closer to the Lord, to each other and to the body of believers.  Meaningfully engaging in a sound local church has helped us  pursue God with more zeal the rest of the week. 

Commit to setting aside time to sabbath weekly. 

Sabbath is growing in popularity right now as many people recognize the importance of a rhythm of work and rest. However, as important as rest is, let me suggest that there should also be a focus on worship.  I grew in my understanding of the priority of worship when our family started to study this in greater depth about a year ago. As we looked at the practice of the sabbath from the Old Testament to the New Testament, we could not ignore the call to prioritize the worship of God once a week.  As we have tried to pattern our lives after this rhythm, we have seen an abundance of good fruit in our daily walk with God.  Prioritizing worship on the sabbath helps expose competing idols. By God’s power, this practice has taught us the rhythm of turning our hearts back to the Lord often, which affects our day to day walk with God.  

Commit to taking steps of obedience in response to God’s word. 

It is one thing to be immersed in God’s word and quite another to put it into practice.  Of course we cannot practice what we do not know; but if we don’t practice what we know, it does not bear fruit. I encourage you to regularly consider how you can obey God’s word. A question I like to ask myself is: What needs to happen now that I know this truth? If this is something that you would like to ponder more, I wrote an article about it that you may find helpful. 

Commit to using God’s word as the lens through which you process all of life.

With so much counsel surrounding us it is easy to ignore the most important source – God’s word. It is often not flashy or popular even among christians (sadly), but God’s word really does give reliable guidance for everything we encounter in life. One good place to start in this practice is to prayerfully ask the question: Is there anything in God’s word that can guide me in this situation?  Then as you read God’s word, listen to the word taught and seek biblical counsel,  pay attention to what He reveals. 

Commit to praying according to God’s word. 

This is probably one of my favorite recommendations and practices. The one who invites us to dialogue with Him in prayer tells us everything we need to know about Himself and about life in the Bible.  When you take what you are reading in God’s word and learn to pray based on those truths it transforms you. If you are looking for ideas on how to do this creatively and effectively, get my Pray Everyday Guide. This free guide contains a system I have used for years in my own quiet times and prayer life. You can use it as it is written or look at it as a buffet of ideas to choose from and see what the Lord leads you to pick or leave behind. 
Even though I still plan to have goals in other areas of life, these 8 commitments  based on my pursuit of Christ through His word are the foundation for everything else. If nothing else gets done, I hope I can look back on 2023 and say that I experienced God in an unparalleled way this year.  Will you join me? 

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. Psalm 119:105 (ESV)

For Further Encouragement

Were you encouraged by this blog post? I would love to connect with you on the Her Faith Thrives Newsletter! This newsletter goes out every other month and contains a short personal update, and varying combinations of encouraging reflections like this one, content sneak peeks, and a handful of links to other encouraging resources!