On this other side of New Year’s, I have shifted from “best-ofs” to reading of the hopes and predictions for the new year. No one knows what’s going to happen in 2024, so these kinds of lists are much less reliable than the year-end ones that look back on what actually took place.

Last year I spent more time than ever in the land of podcasts. On one I listened to last week the regulars on the show reviewed what they predicted about 2023 a year ago. They had gotten most everything wrong. They laughed about it, and it did seem funny. We humans seems so uniquely gifted at getting these things wrong, and then being impressed with ourselves for trying. So, what did they do next? The exact same thing for 2024. Why did I listen when they were so off about the last?

Another podcast debated making resolutions at the beginning of the year. For the most part the participants didn’t own up to making them. But then they confessed to doing their own versions of resolutions, just not tied to January 1. I noticed, too, that many of them looked to liturgical calendars or selected monastic practices to help give shape and discipline to their days and nights. Though some Christians I respect draw inspiration for daily discipline from places as unlikely as the Islamic calls to prayer at dawn, noon, mid-afternoon, sunset and after dark or monastic hours of prayers, which seem to follow similar patterns. I rebel against much of that formalism and repetition.

That kind of thing seems pretty self-absorbed, though I realize in saying this that I’ve likely lost a good number of my friendly readers who love the rich aesthetics and rhythms the liturgical calendar provides, or just like making resolutions anyway. Maybe my saying these things makes me just as self-absorbed as everyone else. Oh well. It’s January.

But as I look ahead to 2024, I’m not interested in predictions or resolutions. If I lose weight, start swimming, write more, become socially engaged in an issue or election, good for me. But not best for me.

And I do want to spend more time praying and in communion with God. While on earth, Jesus withdrew to the quiet place to be alone with God.

Jonathan Edwards wrote resolutions for himself as a young man that he reviewed once a week to see how he was doing. It’s a comprehensive list. Maybe I could try for three of my own but what might they be?

Best for me in 2024 is a declaration or a proclamation or two, not about me, not about the world. I want this year to be a year to more clearly and fully declare God.

After all, if the heavens declare the glory of God, can’t I, too? Or will I just go on thinking about who is going to win the football game or the election or the newest competition show on my favorite streaming service. The declarations are revealed in the things I do, the words I say, the way I act to the people who are not like me, who may not like me.

My declarations will have to be simple enough for a Kindergartener, not graduate school theological phrases that impress the enlightened few. These declarations are for everyone.
God is trustworthy.
God is good.
God is near.
God is here.
Father, Son, Spirit.
Jesus came. He died. He rose.
He reigns.

And this from our Bible study in the Book of Acts:
Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.

This is a new year’s declaration I can get behind. It doesn’t matter if I’m in shape or out of shape, keeping my resolutions or already broken them. My life in 2024 can declare this truth, this freedom found only in Jesus.

Let these simple but eternal declarations control me in new ways this year.