The New Year creates in us a renewed motivation to start over and make something better of both ourselves and the organizations we lead. As Christ followers, we are called beyond just the self-help methods of weight loss ambitions and self-improvement goals. What can happen when we allow God to get involved in this venture?

Before we create resolutions, lets create space for God to speak his thoughts for us about the New Year. Proverbs 16:9 says, “We can make our own plans, but the LORD determines our steps.” The most powerful driving force for our resolve is found when we get in step with God and let Him set the course. These are a few things I’ve learned about involving God in my plans and goals:

Get away. Getting away can be as simple as going to a coffee shop you don’t normally go to, or spending time in the chapel of your spiritual home. For the last fifteen years, I’ve traveled to the week of prayer at my home church the first week of January. It is a spiritual retreat, allowing God to speak in ways I may not have otherwise been able to hear. I believe there is something powerful to getting out of town, and I would encourage leaders to take a few days completely away for a prayer retreat during the early days of January. If you’re at home, try to schedule several times those first days when you can be with God undistracted by the pressures of daily life.

Reflect on the past year. When I was a senior in high school, I attended a retreat where the speaker encouraged us to journal. This changed my walk with God dramatically. Never having been a great “pray-er,” I finally felt as if I could get my thoughts out to God. This is the record of my spiritual life. It reminds me of His faithfulness, as well as my struggles and heartaches. In those early days of January, I read back over the previous year and try to see the themes that God was weaving.  What has He been saying to me? How is he trying to develop my character? In what ways am I becoming more like Jesus? I journal those thoughts and prayers.

The most powerful driving force for our resolve is found when we get in step with God and let Him set the course.

Start a fast. To be honest, I don’t particularly enjoy fasting.  But every time I crave whatever it is I am fasting, I remember I am giving it up as an offering to the Lord. This simple act of self-denial genuinely helps me be more in tune with the voice of the Holy Spirit. I encourage you, if it is medically possible, to fast some meals. I have also grown from fasting “things that are not beneficial.” When a friend challenged me to do this a few years back, I fasted something I had never fasted before: the news. I had not realized I was checking it over twenty times a day. The brain space that was created over those few weeks opened my mind to a buried creative hunger: A renewed love for music. As a worship leader, I had shut music out of my daily routine. The fast brought a sustained change that repaired a balance in my life that God desired for me.

Find a scripture for the year. Sometimes it has been as I read. Other times it has been in the little “Daily Bread” scripture cards they pass out during the Week of Prayer I attend at my home church. The year my husband and I church planted, I got the card with Revelation 3:12a. In the King James Version it read, “Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God.” That little verse strengthened me through that year as we overcame many obstacles to see God’s plan become a reality.

Pray in solitude. Beyond your normal routine, make extra time to get alone with God. Take every lunch for a week and pray. Practice contemplative prayer, where you sit quietly in His presence. Do like the writer of Ecclesiastes says: “As you enter the house of God… let your words be few.” (5:1-2) When we enter into the rest of God, he shows us what to do.

Pray with others. Attend a prayer meeting, or plan one. I love being with a handful of people who really want to be in God’s presence. Sing a worship song. Pray for the world. Pray for your city. Pray in the spirit. Pray for one another. It’s not about emotion, it’s about giving God opportunity to move and speak. We share in the history of the saints when we practice being in His presence together.

God will reveal things about the year that will prepare us and strengthen us for what lies ahead. He will open our eyes to His vision and give us the wisdom to know how to see it happen. Let Him lead as you consider your goals for the New Year. The resolutions will be more than empty promises, but Spirit-led resolve to stay the course and keep growing through the months to come.