Framing Intentions for 2023
Intentions from a Bygone Era
As most of us are still contemplating our hopes for the New Year, I offer some prompts and reflections that I hope will be of encouragement to you.
In our early years in pastoral ministry we would set a time in our churches to consider biblically informed goal-setting at the start of the New Year. I would like to encourage you not to despair of setting down some intentions, hopes, and aspirations for the New Year, and returning to review them, even if your prior experience of this has been a disaster!
Rather, my encouragement is for you to join with me in taking time to prayerfully, realistically, without hubris, reflect before our Heavenly Father about the limits of time and resources he has given you to live, and how he would have you steward them by faith. (See Psalm 90:12-17).
Back in those early days something Rick Warren said stuck with me:
“The biggest differentiator between those who were moderately successful in life and those who were highly successful is whether or not they had definable goals written down.”
I did not think he was saying writing down definable goals will magically make them happen. I still don’t.
Instead I understand it to mean that going through a thoughtful process of making decisions about the future produces a level of intentionality and clarity concerning our aspirations. It moves us from vagueness to specificity. Trying to apply this biblically through the years I’ve also learned that I need to do the work of taking things down to “ground level”—translating lofty hopes and aspirations into the ordinary fabric of daily life. And how do we do that?
I offer three outstanding reflections on this concept. First, I point you to an article of enduring value from The Gospel Coalition here: Make Habits, Not Resolutions.
Then, two resources written by our daughter Kelsey Reed have encouraged me. These contain her theological reflections on growth and change framed by the implications of Christ’s incarnation. Find her reflections here: Incarnational Learning: the Provision, Promise, and Purpose for Human Growth and here: An Advent Meditation in Four Parts: Jesus the Perfect Learner.
By God’s grace may he inform, perfect, and shape the desires of your heart toward the fulfillment of his purposes in 2023.
