A look back at 2023

Happy New Year!

I put together a quick video highlighting the places and people I saw in 2023. From Virginia to Arkansas and back again (twice) with a beach trip to North Carolina in between, I stayed in the South. (I’m still torn if VA is part of the True South any longer. More people prefer macaroni and cheese here than mashed potatoes as a side dish, and that’s alarming.)

Guidance & Inspiration for 2024

Here are few articles to read (from Desiring God’s website) that may just help you ring in the New Year in a new way that will bless you and those in your life.

• His Voice First: A New Year’s Resolve and Prayer by David Mathis
  ”We live in a world awash in words… In such times and spaces as ours, and at such an occasion as a new year, how might we learn to better drown out the remote, digital voices that have so few messages of importance for us, and better hear the near, precious, embodied voices? And in particular, what if the voice of Jesus carried the most weight of all?”

  The writer urges us to “hear His voice” and make Him first – in delight, in deference and each day.

• Plan Like a Christian: Five Principles for a New Year by Scott Hubbard
  “Perhaps the best test of a planner’s heart comes later, outside the moment of planning, when we realize that God’s plans were different from ours.”

One of my favorite quotes from John Piper about planning:

“So my plea to you is that you set aside time each week to plan, especially to plan your life of prayer and Bible study..  Give some thought to how God might want to use you that week in a special way. Plan the letters you need to write, the Bible verses you want to teach your children, the visit you want to make, the book you want to read, the neighbor you want to talk to, etc. The Proverbs teach us to plan. The greatest missionary who ever lived was a planner. God is a God who does all things according to plan. And Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem because of the most loving plan ever devised. He planned for our joy; we ought to plan for his glory.”

Read the Bible daily this year.

I mentioned in this post that I read through the New Testament last year. It was rich and full of reminders of God’s overall plan for my life. Reading the Bible daily brought much-needed, broad-view perspective. It calmed. It centered. It elevated my hope.

I’ve been practicing daily Bible reading since I was in middle school, and I have no intentions to quit.

“The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul..” (Psalms 19:7)

I invite you to do the same. If you need a plan, check any Bible app. (I use OliveTree). There will be great reading plans there. If you would like to design your own “in a year” plan, try this site.

Resolution: Prayerful

I recently gave on reading a book about prayer. However, I definitely felt the kind, gentle but insistent invitation from God to be prayerful. As a pastor, it’s so tempting to translate a compulsion for personal prayer into programmaticprayer – as in thinking about prayer meetings, a prayer ministry, recruiting leaders, casting vision, etc. … all for the mobilization of the church to pray.

However, my sense of being invited into prayer in this season is personal. I simply want to enjoy, grow, model and through intimate practice, invite others into prayer with me. No church programs. No scheduled prayer times. Just to pray naturally and with joy – and with others as opportunity allows. I’ll let God do the drawing, the motivating and the mobilizing after that. After all they’re His people, not mine.

What are you embracing/sensing as 2024 growth areas?

Perhaps one of your resolutions could be to become a subscriber to Notes from the Trail! 😉 Click the button to the right, and share my blog with others if it’s been an encouragement to you along the way.