New Year, More Intentional Me

We’ve all probably said it, I know I have, “New Year, New Me”. Anyone? If you are looking to waste time today google “New Year, New Me” memes, you will not be disappointed. 

New Year's Day is low-key one of my favorite Holidays. I’ve always been a New Year’s resolution type of guy. I’d leave one year in hopes of leaving some things behind and begin a new year with some pretty great intentions to make some changes with the fresh year. Sometimes these great intentions materialized into a few strong months, in some cases a few strong days, and even in some cases a few strong hours. No matter your thoughts on New Year's resolutions or goal making chances are you’ve recognized some areas you would like to see growth and you’ve made some kind of plans to get yourself where you want to go. Hopefully your efforts have been more fruitful than mine, but if you are honest with yourself they probably haven’t been, have they? 

For most of my life I’ve welcomed a New Year with strong intentions to get more physically healthy. I’d research the latest fads for nutrition and fitness. I’d buy a bunch of things like neat water bottles, fancy foods, and new workout clothes. The initial enthusiasm provided enough motivation for me to spend money and I was excited to do so. Most of the time I went into the New Year thinking this was going to be the year I stick with it. I’m batting exactly 0% out of minimally 15 years of health related New Year’s Resolutions. Surely your batting average with New Year's Resolutions is better than mine. 

2021 in so many ways was one of the longest and most painful years of my life. It’s hard to believe that, because I probably said the same thing about 2020. The collective “suck” of the past two years leaves me less optimistic about 2022 than I have been about any year of my history. Life has kicked me in the teeth enough by now to know that the changing of the calendar year means very little more than I’m going to have to fight really hard to remember what year it is anytime I have to include the date on something. This is an area that I’ve seen slightly more fruitfulness lately, mostly due to technology at my fingertips at all times. I can now just google the date instead of looking like an idiot for the first 4 months of every year when I write the wrong date. 

While 2021 had its ups and downs, many more downs than it did ups it wasn’t all a wash. For all the years of physical health related New Year's Resolutions with little to no fruitfulness in this pursuit I gained a lot of traction in 2021. Oddly enough, the fruitfulness I've experienced in my physical health had nothing to do with a resolution I made last January. I actually didn’t even get serious about my physical health until May and that had nothing to do with the New Year's Resolutions I made and broke in January. Over the course of 2021 I was able to drop 100 lbs. I feel healthier, my body is healthier, and is beginning to look healthier. 

Years ago I was challenged to slow down and warned that my body, my life, my ministry couldn’t sustain the pace at which I was living. That is probably more true for more of us than it isn’t. Life happens fast and I often felt that if I didn’t keep up with it too much of it was going to pass me by. Oddly, I found the opposite to be true, in trying to keep up with the pace of the world around me much of my life was passing me by. In not being intentional with my time and intentional about the details of my life I like C.S. Lewis found that there was no lack of people, or things willing to be intentional about my life and time but not for my good for their desired end. Creating margin in my life has given me some time to breathe, some time to reflect, and has helped me learn to pay attention to what God is doing within me, around me and within the lives of the people who mean the most to me. 

As I've slowed down and made space for reflection, being with Jesus, feeling my feelings, and not hurrying from one thing to the next, things get clearer. The margin makes way for clarity. Sometimes that clarity means having to see some pretty horrific things about myself and the world around me that I’d miss in my hurried pace. Even still, slowing down, living with margin also allows me to see some pretty amazing and beautiful things about myself, the world and the people around me. Things certainly get clearer. What’s most important about life gets a little easier to see. Our hurry often leaves us neglecting what is most important about life in pursuit of things that in the end will not matter all that much. 

With space, comes clarity and with clarity comes intentionality. When I know more clearly who I am, what I want, and what is most important I can go after those things with more intentionality. Instead of letting other people and other things waste my time, I can use it to pursue what is most important. Instead of hurrying from thing to thing in hopes of moving the ball forward I can direct that energy at things that have been thought through, prayed through and well counseled. I can use my one life for things that matter. 

As you begin a new year. It’s a blank slate full of so many possibilities. I hope that you have dreams, and I even hope that you have goals and resolutions for yourself this year. More than any of these things, I hope that you prioritize the right things which may mean doing less things but doing them more intentionally. Slow down, create margin in your schedule, in your finances, in your headspace, wherever you need it. Get some coaching, develop a plan or rule of life, get some counseling. As things get clearer for you, spend the time thinking it through, praying for wisdom and direction, and then go after it. I’ve found that ambition isn’t my biggest problem in life, ambition for the wrong things often is. 

I want the life of Jesus. All the peace, all the hope, all the joy, all the love and the multitude of other things His presence promises but sometimes I don’t want the lifestyle of Jesus. The slower pace, the daily disciplines, the trust in the sovereignty of God. Something from the life of Jesus struck me in my reading this week from Mark 14. As Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane with his disciples His soul was very heavy and he took some time to pray and He prayed in Mark 14:36, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” What stands out to me is the depth of Jesus’ trust for His Father. Facing death, he declares the words “Yet not what I will, but what you will.” 

The life of Jesus was a life of margin. He created the space for clarity and from clarity lived a life of unrivaled intentionality. Every word said and word not said, every action done and not done, every move made and not made was done or not done from a deep abiding trust in His Father and His Father’s plans for His life. As you head into 2022 how might you create margin and slow down to get clarity on what matters and then be intentional with how you invest your time and energy towards those things?

My hopes for 2022 are simple. Slow down, spend time with Jesus and spend my time doing what matters. My prayer for 2022 is a simple one, “Lord remove from my life what does not matter that you may fill it with what does.” 

Pick a word, offer up a prayer, make the goals and resolutions but do so this year prioritizing time with Jesus, a life lived at His pace and in His presence and as things get clearer step into whatever He invites you into with courage and trust that He is with you and for you! 

Submitted By: Matt Korte