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4 Ways to Carry Hope with You This Year

As the new year begins, many of us may find ourselves feeling weary and overwhelmed. But our God promises to be with us, always. He promises us hope.Together, let’s discover four ways we can carry hope into the new year.

An 8-Day Prayer Challenge for a New Year

It’s that time of the year when we make resolutions, promises, goals, and dreams. When it comes to spiritual disciplines, one of those that I always seem to make every year centers around prayer. I want to pray longer, deeper, and with more intentionality. I want to pray for others better and set aside real time to pray! The problem? I sometimes don’t even know where to begin.How to Get StartedThe first thing we do when we get started with prayer is to consciously make it a priority. Are you going to make prayer a priority? The want-to needs to start with you. Decide each day to make prayer a priority. We can ask the Lord to give us the desire to pray. We can make sure to read scripture each day to pray. Putting prayer on our calendar also shows that we want to prioritize it.Today I’d love to offer you eight prayers you can pray for the new year. Pray one of these for eight days and see what God can do! These prayers are not designed to just be said aloud and then you're finished. Use the scriptures to meditate on God’s Word, focusing on the truth you find there. Then use the prayers as starters, ending with your own thoughts about each topic! You can join others participating in this prayer challenge here.Discover how the power of prayer can transform any life into one that looks to God for comfort and joy. Here are eight days of prayers to pray for the new year:Photo Credit: ©GettyImages/TinnakornJorruang

6 Questions to Ask Yourself in 2023

Instead of making New Year's resolutions each year that you might tend to forget about or wimp out on in a couple weeks or months, I encourage you to carve out some time this month to ask yourself some questions that may lead to some much-needed spiritual goals.Our God is all about relationships, not to-do lists, so getting at the heart of Who He is and what He wants from your life is key to setting spiritual goals so you don’t end up in a spiritual rut or lukewarm in your relationship with God year after year. Is growing in your relationship with God—and growing in your relationships with family and friends—important to you? Asking God and yourself specific questions and setting some spiritual goals for the next year as a result, helps me ensure that there is spiritual fruit developing from my life each year, instead of being a sponge that continues to soak it all in, but gives little out.Here are six questions to ask God and yourself—and some resulting goals you may want to consider—to make it a spiritually productive 2023:Photo Credit: ©iStock/Getty Images Plus/Mirel Kipioro

4 Great Ways to End One Year and Begin a New One

Around this time of the year, it is normal to reflect on the past year in preparation for the New Year. Although reflection is good, it should be guided, or our thoughts can wander aimlessly, causing us to feel overwhelmed. This is one of the major roles of the Holy Spirit, to lead us and guide our minds. According to John 16:13 (N.L.T.), "When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future." As you take a moment to evaluate this year and seek God about the upcoming New Year, here are four ways to facilitate an honest conversation with yourself and God.
Photo credit: ©Pexels/Negative Space

12 Verses to Kick-Start the New Year

A New Year is almost upon us! As everyone starts to think of resolutions and ways to start a "New Year, New Me" plan, take a moment to turn to Scripture for inspiration. These 12 verses will encourage you, challenge you, and are a guaranteed way to start the year off on the right foot.

Crosswalk’s Top 10 Prayer Articles of 2022

We hope that as you read this article, you are reminded of your own personal prayers that have been lifted throughout the past year, as well as inspired to lift a few more along with other readers.

How to Embrace the New Year

Embrace the future by letting go of past heartaches, worries, and things you cannot change. That includes forgiving those who hurt you, realizing you cannot change other people, and accepting what things cannot be undone. List what caused hurts, worries, and problems; let each one go. Grief is a process, so accept that if you are grieving a loss, allow time to get through it, and pray for God’s help.

3 Reasons Not to Make a New Year's Resolution

There's a fine line between throwing goals out the window and extending grace to oneself. But one of the glitches with a New Year's resolution is it also comes almost without exception with an ominous thundercloud of potential—if not probable—failure. Some of that is because we set unreasonable goals, and some is simply because life isn't going to hand us the cooperation we need to accomplish what we've set out to do.

One Year of Scripture Writing Guides

Each day of these monthly challenges gives you an opportunity to write out a passage of Scripture. We pray that as you meditate on God's Word throughout the coming year, you will be richly blessed!

3 Things to Pray for in the New Year

As we leave the old year behind, how about we saturate the coming new year with prayers?So, let’s pray for three things that will remain regardless of circumstance: Faith, hope, and love.

Fun Ways to Ring in the New Year with Your Family

Gather together and share three things (or however many you wish) that you would like to see God help you with in the coming year. Teaching children that new goals are good, but including the Lord in their plans is even better.

Setting Goals for a Good Year of Marriage

Resolutions are rarely kept past 30 days but goals can be life changing. More than good intentions, goals help you put in place concrete steps to create a different life, and a different kind of love. Goals are simply dreams with deadlines. So take some time to dream together!

8 Parenting Resolutions to Have Going into 2023

An unintentional side effect of being so connected is that parents—and children—have relational fatigue from the pressure of constant communication and competition for attention. By concentrating on disconnecting, we can reaffirm our commitment to each other and our children. Have regular device-free time together, such as during family dinners, on Sundays, and overnight.

The Top 10 Marriage Articles of 2022

As we enter the New Year, we pray that God will richly bless you in your marriage and work in marvelous ways for those going through a hard season. He is capable of more than we can even imagine and is the great Healer. Lean on Him as you face trials in your relationship, praise Him for every breakthrough, and rejoice when you experience growth and happiness together.

Your Top 10 Questions about Christianity for 2022

There are so many in this world who will enter 2023 without hope and without peace that can only come through Christ. So, before we focus on ourselves, let us remember our true calling to love others as we love ourselves.

7 Resolutions to Grow Your Faith in the New Year

More than simply losing weight or decluttering one’s home, believers can use the idea of making resolutions to place needed emphasis on their relationship with Jesus and strengthening their faith in God.

5 Great Parenting Goals to Have for 2023

Raising children in this day and age is proving difficult, and I'd be lying if I didn't admit that there are some days that I question everything I am doing as a mom. The world is changing and appears to be going down several destructive paths.The combination of consuming (and highly addictive) technology, ever-changing school systems, online safety (or lack thereof), identity and gender confusion, among so many other hidden dangers, have become a revolving door for the deceiver to come in and capture our children's minds and sabotage their hearts. Evil no longer hides as it has weaseled its way into most of our public systems and now has made its way into our homes. Parents now wrestle with how to adapt to the ever-changing and challenging issues at hand while keeping their children safe.What's a parent to do? I wish I had the answers, but thankfully our God does! And He will lead and guide us as we raise our children in this day in age. Below are five simple parenting goals I plan to implement this coming year. Will you join me in letting God take the reigns and allowing Him to speak into the lives of our children and this generation?
Photo credit: ©Unsplah/Jessica Rockowitz
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