What God Wants You to Remember as the Year Begins
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“When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.”
Psalm 94:19
Most of us do not step into a new year feeling bold or resolved. We step in carrying things. Some visible. Some unspoken. Hopes we are afraid to name. Worries we are tired of carrying. Questions about what lies ahead and whether we will have the strength to meet it.
But God does not assure us with specifics about the future. He assures us with Himself.
Again and again, Scripture reminds us of this truth. God is not only sovereign and wise. He is not only faithful and good. Scripture reminds us that He is our Father.
That title is meant to settle us. And yet for many, it does not.
For some, the word father carries disappointment, absence, or pain. But Scripture never asks us to filter our understanding of God through the failures of human relationships. Instead, it does the opposite. Earthly fathers are meant to be a shadow. God is the reality. He is not merely a better version of what we have known. He is the perfect, loving Father from whom all true fatherhood takes its name.
When Jesus teaches His disciples to pray, He begins simply: “Our Father” (Matthew 6:9).
That is not meant to be a ritual. It is reality.
What is quietly remarkable is that when Jesus gives us the Lord’s Prayer, He does not say to pray in His name. And yet we know He tells us elsewhere to do exactly that (John 16:23). The reason is not inconsistency. It is assurance. Because of what Jesus has accomplished, the right to call God Father is already secured. As Paul writes, “You have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Romans 8:15).
Because of Jesus, we get to come as dearly loved sons and daughters.
And then Scripture says something that almost feels too profound to believe. Jesus tells us that the Father loves us with the same love He has for the Son: “I have made known to them Your name… so that the love with which You have loved Me may be in them” (John 17:26).
Paul helps us sit with the weight of that truth. If God loves us with the same love as He loves Jesus, then “He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).
Does this not evoke an overflow of adoration?
It’s no wonder why Scripture teaches us to enter God’s presence with thanksgiving and praise.
“Our Father… holy is Your name” (Matthew 6:9).
“Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise” (Psalm 100:4).
Praise does something quiet and necessary in us. It reminds us who God is before fear has the chance to speak. It recenters our hearts when worry has begun to feel normal. It draws us back into the safety of God’s Father-heart.
One woman shared the impact of sitting with the intimacy of God as Father as she followed Jesus’ example of prayer. Having led with petition for most of her prayer life, as many of us do, she began praising God before bringing her concerns. Often, by the time she reached them, she felt her grip loosen. Not because the concerns weren’t big, but because God felt bigger. She stopped one day and thought, “Why am I worried?” And she left those things with Him.
This is what happens when belief sinks from the mind into the heart.
When we approach God as Father, when we remember His holiness, His wisdom, His faithfulness, something shifts. Anxiety does not have the same hold. Peace becomes more than an idea. We move through our days less guarded, less burdened, more aware that everything does not depend on us.
As we step into a new year, this is what we are invited to remember. God meets us not as a distant authority, but as an intimate, loving Father who delights to give what is good to His children. When we hold that truth close—when we really believe it—peace leads the way. We step forward with confident trust in a perfectly loving Father who is already at work in all that lies ahead.
Reflection Question
What might change in how you face the days ahead if you truly believed that God delights to give what is good to you as His child?
Further Reflection
📖 Galatians 4:4–7
📖 Luke 11:11–13
📖 Romans 8:14–17
📖 1 John 3:1
Prayer
Father,
Holy is Your name.
Thank You for meeting me with Your presence and for forming this truth in me as Your child. Thank You for adopting me, for loving me, and for delighting in me as Your own.
As I step into this year, help me remember who You are and who I am because of You.
Quiet my fears. Steady my heart. Teach me to trust You more deeply and to walk in the peace that comes from knowing You as Father.
In Jesus' name, Amen.
