Encouraging Thoughts for a New Year
Jan 7, 2026
In God’s goodness, he has brought us through 2025 and into 2026. For some of us, this is the season for New Year’s resolutions about diet and exercise, and making plans for the future, and attending to the various spheres of life we’re responsible for.
Yet, as we think about the health of our bodies, the health of our marriages, the welfare of our families, goals for our work, and serving Christ and his Church, it helps to pause and to ask something more fundamental than what we will start doing and what we might stop doing. We can become quite efficient at doing all the wrong things. But we want to be effective — disciples of Christ who are salt and light in the world. And so we ask: “What is the most important goal? What is the most important business of your life?”
Below are three articles that have helped me settle into a better mindset as I jump into a full January and anticipate a very full first half of the year. As George Müller preached on New Year’s Eve in 1876:
Above all things, see to it that your souls are happy in the Lord.
You can read Müller’s address, and two more helpful articles, linked below:
The Most Important Business of Your Life, by George Müller.
In his sermon, Müller says, “Other things may press upon you; the Lord’s work even may have urgent claims upon your attention; but I deliberately repeat, it is of supreme and paramount importance that you should seek, above all other things, to have your souls truly happy in God Himself.”
Old Advice for a New Year, by Cassie Achermann.
In this article, Achermann invites us to listen in to New Year’s encouragement from pastors like Charles, Newton, Spurgeon, Ryle, and M’Cheyne, inviting us to consider what a truly “happy” New Year might look like for sinners saved by grace.
New Year’s Goal Setting for People with Actual Lives, by Joe Carter.
In this article, Carter helps us prioritize our priorities, our energy, and our limits, starting not merely with goals to achieve but with who God has called you to be in this season, considering what it takes to be faithful there. He provides a wisdom grid for setting priorities, asking:
What does faithfulness require of me here? (Priorities)
When and how can I actually engage this? (Energy)
What constraints should shape my expectations? (Limits)
The grace of Christ, the strength of his Spirit, and the love of the Father be with you in 2026.
— Rick Whitlock, Pastor of Mission & Formation