Aiming for spiritual growth in the New Year

 

Here we are on the eve of a new year.  I'm not sure how 2022 flew past as it did, but it's gone.  It's that time again when we consider goals or resolutions for the coming year.  I prefer goals, personally.  It seems to me that resolutions can easily be broken (and discarded), but a goal is something you can keep working at even if you fall a little short of it at times.  Even if you don't fully realize a goal, you make progress toward it.  When I set goals for a new year, spiritual goals are always included. 

Due to a cough and cold, I didn't make it to church on Wednesday evening, but my hubby shared with me what our pastor had taught on.  He's beginning a series on spiritual goals/resolutions and suggests things like reading through the Bible in a year; establishing a habit of Bible reading if one has never done so; beginning or continuing a Scripture memory program; nurturing one's prayer life, meditating on Scripture, and so on.  I'm so happy that he's encouraging us to do this.  

Our former pastor of many years always taught us (and very accurately, too) that there is no standing still in the Christian life.  We're either moving forward or we're moving backward.  That has always stuck with me through the years and I have seen it proved true over and over.  

So aiming for ongoing spiritual growth is very, very important and I find the start of a new year to be the perfect time to make a plan for it.  As the old saying goes, if you aim at nothing, you'll hit it every time.  So in every area of life, I try to aim at something, no matter how small it may seem.

I haven't fully formulated my spiritual goals for this year (more to come on that later), but my hubby would like for us to begin a Scripture memory program, so that would be one.  I didn't read through the Bible last year, so I'm planning to use a one-year Bible and do that this coming year.  

May I encourage you to aim for greater spiritual growth in the New Year?  You will not regret having done so.