It’s Your Year. Capture It!

A prayer journal will encourage and bless you year after year. 

I’m guilty of the New Year, New You mindset. Year after year, I make the same three or four resolutions, call up one of my besties and we chat about what we’d like to change in the year ahead.

More than 20 years later, we’re both looking at resolutions differently.

She’s focused on month-by-month projects and she’s knocking it out of the park. I’m focused on big-picture goals and mapping out small objectives needed to get there. 

I geek out on word choice and update my planner for the new year and spend too much adding just the right motivational stickers. I’ve even written a “New Year, New You” headline at some point in my career. Sorry. It was the early aughts.

Serendipity came a-knocking yesterday as I spied the first four words of the pastor’s sermon title.

New Year, New You, Same God

I’m still reflecting on the sermon, and looking back at what God’s done in my life. If 2023 had a title, it would be “New year, new marriage and a wallop of (mostly good) change.”

I’m able to flip through last year’s sermon notes and Bible studies through a DIY journal. I usually scribble prayers, requests and praises in there too. Thumbing through the pages, encouragement is everywhere. Desperate prayers answered, people healed, and scriptures that sustain. What a treasure!

For 2024, I’m challenging myself to add a daily note so I can meditate on areas where I need self-improvement, prayer or help.

Could a prayer journal help you too? Here’s a little bit of inspiration from Habakkuk 2:2 (ESV):

And the Lord answered me:
“Write the vision;
Make it plain on tablets,
So he may run who reads it.

Habakkuk 2:2 (ESV)

Let’s pray together, shall we? 

Lord, thank you for being a loving God whose consistency blesses us with grace and mercy. Please guide our steps this year and lead the way. Teach us and prompt us where we need to repent and think differently. 

It’s your year, capture it!

— Elise