Ten Questions to Ask at the Start of a
New Year
or On Your Birthday (by Donald Whitney)
Once, when the people of God had become careless in their relationship
with Him, the Lord rebuked them through the prophet Haggai.
"Consider your ways!" (Haggai 1:5) he declared, urging them to reflect
on some of the things happening to them, and to evaluate their
slipshod spirituality in light of what God had told them.
Even those most faithful to God occasionally need to pause and think
about the direction of their lives. It's so easy to bump along from
one busy week to another without ever stopping to ponder where
we're going and where we should be going.
The beginning of a new year is an ideal time to stop, look up, and
get our bearings. To that end, here are some questions to ask
prayerfully in the presence of God.
1. What's one thing you could do this year to increase your
enjoyment of God?
2. What's the most humanly impossible thing you will ask God
to do this year?
3. What's the single most important thing you could do to
improve the quality of your family life this year?
4. In which spiritual discipline do you most want to make
progress this year, and what will you do about it?
5. What is the single biggest time-waster in your life, and what
will you do about it this year?
6. What is the most helpful new way you could strengthen
your church?
7. For whose salvation will you pray most fervently this year?
8. What's the most important way you will, by God's grace, try
to make this year different from last year?
9. What one thing could you do to improve your prayer life
this year?
10. What single thing that you plan to do this year will matter
most in ten years? In eternity?
In addition to these ten questions, here are twenty-one more
to help you "Consider your ways." Think on the entire list at
one sitting, or answer one question each day for a month.
11. What's the most important decision you need to make this year?
12. What area of your life most needs simplifying, and what's
one way you could simplify in that area?
13. What's the most important need you feel burdened to
meet this year?
14. What habit would you most like to establish this year?
15. Who is the person you most want to encourage this
year?
16. What is your most important financial goal this year,
and what is the most important step you can take toward
achieving it?
17. What's the single most important thing you could do
to improve the quality of your work life this year?
18. What's one new way you could be a blessing to your
pastor (or to another who ministers to you) this year?
19. What's one thing you could do this year to enrich
the spiritual legacy you will leave to your children
and grandchildren?
20. What book, in addition to the Bible, do you most
want to read this year?
21. What one thing do you most regret about last year,
and what will you do about it this year?
22. What single blessing from God do you want to seek
most earnestly this year?
23. In what area of your life do you most need growth,
and what will you do about it this year?
24. What's the most important trip you want to take
this year?
25. What skill do you most want to learn or improve
this year?
26. To what need or ministry will you try to give an
unprecedented amount this year?
27. What's the single most important thing you could do
to improve the quality of your commute this year?
28. What one biblical doctrine do you most want to
understand better this year, and what will you do about it?
29. If those who know you best gave you one piece of
advice, what would they say? Would they be right?
What will you do about it?
30. What's the most important new item you want to
buy this year?
31. In what area of your life do you most need change,
and what will you do about it this year?
The value of many of these questions is not in their
profundity, but in the simple fact that they bring an
issue or commitment into focus. For example, just by
articulating which person you most want to encourage
this year is more likely to help you remember to
encourage that person than if you hadn't considered
the question.
If you've found these questions helpful, you might want
to put them someplace—in a day planner, PDA, calendar,
bulletin board, etc.—where you can review them more
frequently than once a year.
So let's evaluate our lives, make plans and goals, and
live this new year with biblical diligence, remembering
that, "The plans of the diligent lead surely to advantage"
(Proverbs 21:5). But in all things let's also remember
our dependence on our King who said, "Apart from Me
you can do nothing" (John 15:5).
