10 questions for a new year

Writing at Desiring God, Professor Don Whitney penned an article about reconsidering and establishing priorities.

Although it was focused on a new year, these are 10 questions people can ask of themselves anytime they desire a fresh start.

Here are Don’s 10 questions:

  1. What’s the most important decision you need to make?
  2. How can you simplify your life?
  3. What’s the most important need you feel burdened to meet?
  4. What habit would you most like to establish?
  5. Whom do you most want to encourage?
  6. What is your most important financial goal, and what is the most important step toward it?
  7. What’s the single best step you can take to improve your work life?
  8. What’s one way you can bless your pastor (or another who ministers to you)?
  9. What’s one step you can take to enrich your family’s spiritual legacy?
  10. What book, in addition to the Bible, do you most want to read?

I would also encourage you to evaluate what you do every day to determine where you seem to waste the most time and then either seek to eliminate those distractions or repurpose them into productive time.

For example, if you spend time of Facebook, could you use it to encourage someone struggling with a problem or to shine a light of hope among the doom-and-gloom news of the day? There are already enough snarky memes and political unproductive political comments on that platform.

“Consider incorporating these questions into your devotional time today or tomorrow, or just setting aside a few quiet minutes when you can ponder them with a pen and a cup of coffee,” Don suggested. “If we’re not intentional, we may find that we spent more time thinking about our Christmas list than about the entire upcoming year of our lives.”

The full story expands on each of the questions to provide further insight and spark further self-evaluation of your life. It is available at DesiringGod.org.

Whether you are a person of faith or not so much, the questions work to put your current activity into perspective to determine how it is lining up to your desired outcome.