At the beginning of a new year, my husband always encouraged our church families to look back on the past year to assess failures and triumphs and to choose new goals, identify faults to overcome, and to dream sweet dreams about the new year. It was always a wonderful time of reflection and rededication for me.
This new year, though, I decided not to bother with choosing goals for the new year. After all, I am very old and very tired. I decided I’d skip new year’s resolutions. But—!
But—! One of my daughters gave me a date book for 2026. And in that date book, even before the calendar for the first week of January appears, there’s a double-page with a black-print heading, “My Vision Board.” It rebuked me mutely. “You need to think about what God wants you to do this new year,” said that blank page. Yes, no matter how old I happen to feel, a beautiful, pristine new year awaits me. Am I going to miss the joy of using it for God because I feel old and tired?
That impertinent date book gets nosier. On the next page, again before I’ve gotten to the first week’s calendar, it asks me to analyze last year’s failures and ways to do better! To cinch my feelings of inadequacies, every calendar page after than asks me how I’ve done!
But my task to serve Jesus really isn’t as daunting as I had come to feel. All that really matters is, “What does my loving Heavenly Father want of me in 2026?” Matthew 22:35-39 (nlt) answers simply.
An expert in religious law tried to trap Jesus with this question:
“Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?”
Jesus replied,
“You must love the LORD your God
with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.
This is the first and greatest commandment.
“0A second is equally important:
“Love your neighbor as yourself.”
If you love God with all your heart and love other people like you love yourself, you’ll have done everything—literally everything!—God expects of you. Loving God will control how you think. Loving people will control how you act. How simple it is, but how difficult!
Why difficult? Because we are basically selfish, self-centered people. When a decision must be made, our first thought likely will be, “How will this affect me?” rather than, “What does God want me to do?”
It’s a matter of loving Jesus, not acting “spiritual.” A six-year-old can love Jesus with all her heart. A fourteen-year-old boy can think passionately of Him. A man who works for the garbage company can serve Him just as well as the CEO of a great company. And certainly, an old and tired woman can still do the work of God as she loves Him with all her heart. God doesn’t need me to work miracles, or drive out demons, or teach the Bible to a thousand women. All He asks of me is that I love Him with everything I am.
And why wouldn’t I love Him with all my heart? He’s the omnipotent God who created a billion galaxies, but He loves me so much He suffered the death of His only Son Jesus to bring me to Heaven. He constantly watches over me. He protects me from danger. He gives me food to eat, heals me in sickness, and gives me family and friends to love me. Why wouldn’t I love God with all my heart and soul and mind?
So, once again, I come humbly to my gracious God: “Dear Lord, I love you. Tell me what you want me to do for You today.” And that’s what I’ll write on that nosy “Vision Board.”