How to Prepare for the Next Year

It's the same every year, really. Remember that God is the worker of your soul's soil. Plus, a short survey I'd love your input on.

How can you prepare for what you can’t control and can’t predict? At the end of each year, millions of people start thinking about how they’d like the next year to be different from the previous one, how they can use what they’ve learned through the trials and successes of the last 365 days. In fact, we usually do this by default. Our trials and successes shape our character, and we draw from that character to face whatever comes next. We can be more intentional about doing this, but it still happens regardless, to varying degrees.

What I’m more interested in is not so much preparation (narrowly defined through a set of values, choices, and behavior patterns) but interpretation. In other words, how will I understand the meaning of whatever happens to me, and how will I respond?

We typically think of this when it comes to the difficult things we face: struggles at work, relational tension, financial distress, loss of loved ones. When hard things happen, we know we won’t like them, that they won’t feel good, but how are we going to interpret them and respond? All of life, when you think about it, is a matter of interpretation and response.