New Year, New Meditations
Back in college, a friend told me about how every year she sought the Lord to ask if there was a specific word to focus on for the next year. She shared about the ways it led to such rich intimacy with God. I was very intrigued by her idea, and so decided to take it and make it my own a bit. About four years ago, I started this practice, and I am so thankful for how I have gotten to see the Lord work and move as He points me to His Word and His heart.
The Practice
In the weeks leading up to the new year, I pray and ask the Lord if there is any specific word and passage of Scripture that He wants me to meditate on for the year. Typically as I’m praying, I reflect over the past year and what God has taught me. I praise God for His work and thank Him for how He showed me more of what it means to abide in Him. I then pray and ask what might be something He is calling me to grow in for the next year. I often have a specific word/phrase pressed into my heart, and then begin to search the Word to see what verses deal with that specific topic. As I am looking through God’s Word, I take a day or two to meditate over those verses, and then choose the one that I feel the Lord is leading me to cling to in the next year. After that, I just wait and watch for what the Lord will do in the upcoming year.
The Blessing of Meditating on Scripture
There is no specific formula for this, but I encourage you to try and invest in this for 2026 as a different way to meditate on God’s Word. Feel free to take it and curate it to what is most helpful for you in your walk with the Lord. This is not supplementary for a daily time with the Lord, but an addition. It also helps me to see my life through the lens of that Scripture for the year. For example, one year the Lord put on my heart “Seek” and so that year I meditated on Matthew 6:33 which says “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you”. For that year, whenever I was going through difficulties, felt apathetic, or didn’t know what to do, I would try to view the situation or decision in light of Matthew 6:33. In the midst of everything, how might God be asking me to seek first His Kingdom and not my own? I would ask God for help to trust that He would provide as I stepped forward in what I felt He was asking me to do as His Word promises in Matthew 6:33. I was nowhere perfect in this, but it was so valuable to continually be drawn back to the Word of God and experience more of His character as I clung to His words.
One moment in particular was very transformative. During that year of Matthew 6:33, I was walking through a difficulty in where I was at. Life was not as I expected it to be and I remember wrestling with the Lord in prayer and saying, “God, I didn’t come to Boston for this”. I remember the Spirit convicting me and the phrase, “You’re right, you came here for me.” popped into my head. I realized at that moment I was living for my own kingdom, and not the Lord’s. I repented of my pride and asked the Lord to help me surrender and seek His Kingdom. A few months later, I had a meeting that changed a lot, and God answered the prayers I had been lifting up to Him for months. As I left that meeting, I noticed that there was a package outside with my name on it. Inside was a t-shirt with Matthew 6:33 on it, and it fit me perfectly. Still to this day, I have no idea who sent it to me or who even knew that the Lord placed that verse on my heart. It felt like such an Ebenezer stone from the Lord, pointing to His faithfulness to His words and His care for me in the details.
Final Thoughts
So as you look to 2026, would you consider what Scripture the Lord might have you meditate on this upcoming year? Consider how it might change you by consistently submitting your life to the Word of God. As the new year starts tomorrow, I encourage you to pray over this and perhaps start meditating over a specific verse or passage the first full week in January into the rest of 2026. I am praying over each of you, that the Holy Spirit and the Word of God transforms your life like nothing else can. What a wonderful God we serve! I am thankful for Hebrews 4:12 that says, “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart”. May you experience this to the fullest in 2026.
