The Great, the Good, and the Bad: Make Room for a Better Year
Before adding another goal, look back honestly. Protect what strengthened your life, limit what grew too large, and turn from what keeps harming your faithfulness.
#406 — Preparing for 2026 (Pt. 1 of 3) - The Great, the Good, and the Bad
Dec 22, 2025
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Look back before adding more
Before adding another resolution, look at the year you have actually lived. Where did you find lasting good? What helped for a while but grew too large? Which choices repeatedly left you wishing you had used the time differently? A new plan needs that honest beginning. Otherwise we may keep adding good intentions to a life already crowded with habits that prevent them. Looking back can show us what needs protecting, what needs a limit, and what needs to end.
Examine choices you could make instead of blaming yourself for every painful event. Illness, loss, and someone else's conduct are not automatic evidence that you failed. Within those circumstances, however, there were ways you responded and patterns you developed. Ephesians 5:15–17 calls believers to walk carefully, use their time wisely, and understand the Lord’s will. An honest review helps us bring those instructions into ordinary life. It gives the coming year a starting point based on what we have learned rather than another round of vague optimism.
Identify what was truly great
Some things are good in more than one direction. We appreciate them while they happen, remain grateful afterward, and see them strengthening something valuable for the future. Thoughtful time with family, learning Scripture, and serving a person may fit that description. Notice your own examples. They may be ordinary and inexpensive. What made them great was the good they carried into the life you want to keep building. Those experiences deserve deliberate room before another year's urgent demands claim the calendar.
Write examples from your own year instead of borrowing a list that sounds admirable. Ask which activities kept leaving you grateful and more ready to know Christ or help someone. What helped you know Christ better or become more useful to another person? Protect those activities with deliberate space in the coming year. That might mean reserving a regular evening, reducing an optional commitment, or preparing earlier so that important time is not consumed by preventable disorder. Great things do not always demand expensive plans. Often they require giving sustained attention to the people and truths already near us and refusing to let every urgent interruption have first claim.
Manage the good and remove the harmful
Other activities bring a mixture of good and cost. A tool may help us communicate and teach while also consuming too much attention. We do not have to call every mixed activity worthless. We should be honest about how it is being used. A boundary may preserve the benefit and reduce the waste. Ask what amount or setting serves the actual purpose. Then be willing to honor the limit instead of repeatedly defending the tool's good uses while ignoring its place in the day.
Some choices need a stronger response than a new limit. Sin calls for repentance, rather than better scheduling or a more efficient way to continue it. There are also choices that may not be sinful in themselves but repeatedly leave us empty, regretful, or less able to fulfill responsibilities. Identify them honestly and consider what their removal would make possible. This is a personal stewardship exercise, not a rule that every moment must produce a visible achievement. Healthy rest belongs in a faithful life. The issue is whether our habits refresh us for what matters or steadily drain the time, money, and attention that those responsibilities need.
Return to your first love
In Revelation 2:1–5, Ephesus receives praise for work, endurance, and concern about false teaching, yet Jesus calls the church back to its first love. Remember, repent, and do the first works. We should hear that personally. It is possible to remain busy around religious duties while giving less attention to the Lord Himself. Ask what has happened to your love for Him. His continuing goodness gives us reason to return with more than regret for an earlier season.
Spend time in a Gospel watching Jesus care, speak truth, and give Himself for sinners. First John 4:9–11 directs our love toward God's gift of His Son and then toward one another. Our failures do not make that revealed love disappear, but they do call us to turn back to him. Recover a habit that once helped you attend to Christ: prayer, study, worship, or service. The goal is not nostalgia for an earlier mood. It is renewed faithfulness grounded in the continuing reality of his love.
Give attention back to God
Colossians 3:1–4 calls those raised with Christ to seek things above and set their minds there. Our earthly responsibilities remain, but they receive a different direction. We need enough attention to hear the Lord while doing them. What repeatedly pulls that attention away? It may be a screen, a constant feed of argument, or the habit of reacting to everything immediately. Choosing a smaller place for that noise can make room to remember whose we are.
Choose one intrusive distraction and try a realistic limit for a week. You might quiet notifications, set the phone aside for a period, or read before opening entertainment. Then assess what happens. Removing a distraction will not automatically create spiritual depth if the newly available space fills with another distraction. Give that space a purpose. A brief afternoon review can help: have I listened carefully, acted responsibly, and remembered the Lord today? Such questions turn attention into an intentional practice instead of something surrendered to whatever arrives first.
Let gratitude become a response
First Thessalonians 5:16–18 joins rejoicing, prayer, and thanksgiving. Gratitude should have a useful place in our review. It does not call us to label grief pleasant or deny what was difficult. It helps us notice what God has given within real life. A person, a provision, a truth learned, or help received can become a reason to give thanks. Then ask how that gratitude could change the care you give to the blessing instead of ending with a pleasant thought.
Name the gift specifically when you thank God. Consider who or what you appreciate and what a faithful response to that blessing could look like. If you are grateful for your spouse, give attention and kindness. If you are grateful for the church, contribute encouragement and service. If you are grateful for Scripture, make time to learn and obey it. Tell one person what you value about them rather than assuming they already know. Gratitude becomes deeper when it changes our use of what we have received. It moves from a pleasant observation into a commitment to care for the blessing well.
Begin with one meaningful change
Do not turn the three categories into a demand to repair your entire life at once. Choose one important change. Protect a great thing, give a good tool a better boundary, or turn from a harmful pattern. Make the action clear enough to practice. Hebrews 12:1–3 calls us toward endurance with our eyes on Jesus. That gives us both seriousness and hope as we begin. A faithful next step can be modest and still lead in a better direction.
Review the choice after you have tried it for a little while. You may learn that the real distraction was different or that the practice needs a time better suited to your life. That is useful learning, not a reason to abandon the effort. The aim is a year with more room for Christ, more attention to people, and fewer choices you continually regret. Look backward with honesty and forward with humility. Then receive the next day as an opportunity to protect what is good, turn away from what harms you, and live thankfully before the Lord.
Take the idea with you.
- 01Which choices gave lasting joy and strengthened something important this past year?
- 02What distraction would you limit to make room for Scripture and prayer?
- 03How will you express gratitude for one person through your actions this week?
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