Best Year Ever: Measure the Year by Faithful Growth
A meaningful year holds more than pleasant events. Grow closer to Christ through steady obedience, honest learning, and care for others, even when the year is hard.
#356 — Best Year Ever
Jan 6, 2025
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What makes a year good?
When you think of your best year, you may remember a wedding, a birth, or a wonderful opportunity. Those are gifts worth thanking God for. Yet the same way of measuring can leave the coming year entirely dependent on what happens to us. If enough favorable events arrive, we may call it good. If loss or disappointment dominates the memory, we may conclude that little of value occurred.
But a year's value reaches deeper than the events we would have chosen. Growing closer to Christ matters too, even in a year that contains things we never wanted. This doesn't make hardship desirable or require a grieving person to label a painful year the best. It gives us something worth pursuing without needing to control the calendar's events. Drawing nearer to Christ can matter profoundly within a year that also contains real sorrow.
Choose growth you can pursue
Second Peter 3:18 gives us something worth pursuing: growth in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. We can come to understand his word better and let it change our response. Honest prayer and a readier willingness to obey should grow alongside our understanding. Those developments aren't always dramatic enough to become a favorite photograph, but they can change the way life is lived. They influence the response to both welcome opportunities and unwelcome difficulties.
Another year passing doesn't automatically make us more mature. We need to look honestly at what is happening in our hearts and habits. Ask how faith is becoming visible. Are you receiving correction more humbly, treating people with greater patience, or responding to temptation with clearer obedience? The answers may include failures that need attention. A hopeful aim isn't a claim that every day improves on the last. It's a commitment to keep moving toward Christ with His help.
Let hope and grief stand together
I've known a year that held both the loss of a close friend and meaningful family experiences. I wouldn't have chosen the loss, and the good memories didn't remove it. But prayer, companionship, and hope mattered in the middle of the sorrow.
Second Corinthians 4:16–18 speaks of inward renewal alongside affliction. That hope gives us strength without requiring us to pretend the pain is small. We can mourn honestly, seek support, and treasure the people still with us. Don't turn someone else's hopeful interpretation of hardship into a required timetable for your own grief. The Lord's promises give a reason to continue trusting Him even when a loss remains painful and the year can't be described with an uncomplicated word. When someone else describes a painful year, begin by listening. You don't need to find the hidden benefit or tell them which lesson the loss should teach. Ask what has been hardest and what help would be welcome. Sharing sorrow patiently can be one of the faithful things that happens in a year neither of you would have chosen.
Learn from what you've lived
Experience can teach us, but we've to be willing to learn. If the same argument keeps happening, it may be time to examine our own part instead of waiting for everybody else to improve. A meaningful year can include learning knowing more about your tendencies, the needs of others, and the choices that help or harm your relationships.
James 1:22–25 compares hearing without doing to looking in a mirror and forgetting what we saw. God's word should help us recognize something we need to change. Reflection should lead to a response. What did a conflict reveal about your speech? What did a season of uncertainty show about your trust or your willingness to seek help? An honest answer can become a practical decision. Maturity isn't simply the confidence that you have changed; it's the willingness to let God's teaching change what you do next.
Keep showing up
An exciting start isn't the same as a lasting change. A crowded reading plan or a page full of promises may feel wonderful until the first exhausting week arrives. Steady attention will carry us farther than occasional intensity. The aim is a faithful practice that can continue when the initial excitement becomes ordinary.
Read an amount of Scripture you can think about and put into practice. Give prayer a regular place instead of waiting until you're desperate. Consider one relationship in which a small repeated act of care would matter. Consistency doesn't mean every day must look identical. It means you return to the commitment after an interruption and let ordinary faithfulness carry more weight than an occasional burst that's never repeated.
Keep growing and keep repenting
Progress matters, even while we recognize how far we've to go. In Philippians 3:12–14, Paul admits he hasn't reached the goal and keeps pressing toward it. The passage encourages determined pursuit, not complacency. A believer should neither claim complete maturity nor decide that an imperfect response makes continued effort worthless. There is room to learn, receive correction, and take another faithful step.
Of course, progress isn't a new name for refusing to repent. When we know something is wrong, we need to turn from it and address the hurt we've caused. Growth can include a smaller temper, more careful words, and better judgment, but it isn't measured merely by feeling better about yourself. Look for a clearer submission to Christ. His grace offers hope for returning to obedience, and that hope helps a Christian continue after a fall.
Stay close to the fundamentals
A new tool can help, but it can't do our obeying for us. The Bible still needs to be opened after the excitement about a new method wears off. Prayer, worship with Christians, and service still deserve our attention after a fashionable method has been forgotten. The concern isn't hostility toward every new idea. It's the temptation to expect novelty to accomplish what requires continuing obedience.
Hebrews 10:23–25 connects our hope with encouraging each other toward love and good works. We need that shared life throughout the year. A journal or schedule can support this work, but it's a tool rather than a spiritual requirement. Choose methods that make attention and action easier, and judge their value by whether they help you practice the faith God actually teaches. If you're drawn to a new method, ask which responsibility it would help you carry. Try it modestly and notice whether it makes attention easier. A complicated system that leaves you constantly managing the system may need to be simplified. Keep the purpose close enough to see: understanding God's word and living more faithfully with the people in your life.
Give the next day a faithful direction
Psalm 90:12 asks God to teach us to number our days and gain wisdom. We don't know everything this year will hold, but we can seek his help in using its days. We can ask for wisdom, pursue a faithful direction, and receive its days with gratitude. First Thessalonians 5:16–18 calls believers to joy, prayer, and thanksgiving in their circumstances, without declaring that every circumstance is itself good.
Choose a practical commitment that will help you draw nearer to Christ, and let something you have learned change what you do. Give it a place in an ordinary week. Review the commitment, seek encouragement, and respond when Scripture exposes something that needs correction. You may still finish the year with unanswered questions or deep grief. Yet within it there can also be greater faith, more generous love, and obedience that was worth pursuing. Those are meaningful reasons to enter the next day with hope. If a plan has failed before, examine what made it difficult instead of simply renewing the same ambitious promise. A smaller practice, a clearer time, or encouragement from a trusted friend may help the commitment become part of ordinary life.
Take the idea with you.
- 01What would growth in Christ look like in my ordinary week?
- 02What has this past year shown me that I need to change?
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