Reflecting on the New Year and Opportunity for Change

Reflecting on the New Year, and the Opportunity for Change

Well, it’s time to get a new calendar; 2025 is now here! Now marks the time where most of us reflect upon the past year and look ahead to the next. Hopefully you’re able to identify positive changes in your life you are proud of, and are humbly able to identify a few habits of thinking or acting that you might be less proud of. This reflection often makes us turn towards the New Year with a greater resolve — resolve to keep doing the good, to quit the bad, embrace health, and pursue holiness. However, as I’m sure you all know, most of our resolutions or commitments to change do not work unless we actually want to see change. 

Now, let’s assume you really want positive change in your life. There’s a number of directions you can look. We might look to influencers, neuroscientists, spiritual guides, CEOs, philosophers, and celebrities for inspiration and direction for how we might pursue change to be more effective, successful, or well-rounded in our busy lives. These can all be good and helpful in bringing about godly change in our lives; in engineering our lives to be hyper-effective for the sake of the Kingdom. However, what if we just tried to pursue happiness? In this piece, we’ll explore how prioritizing happiness in God can transform how we approach the new year, and can lead us to experience real, lasting change. In this post, I’d like to turn our focus to an individual who lived a highly effective, highly joyful, well-formed, Godward life to see if he might have some wisdom for us today.

Faith Over Self-Reliance: George Muller’s Radical Trust in God

George Muller was a pastor, missionary, and orphanage director in late nineteenth century England who stood apart from his peers because of a number of eccentricities surrounding his personal ministry. These “eccentricities” were intentional choices (resolutions, if you will) that Muller took up to guard his heart, mind, and ministry against the temptation of sinful ambition and self-reliance. Because of these choices, his life and ministry stands as a clear testament to God’s gracious provision and faithfulness to his word.

One of these eccentric strategies was that Muller never asked anyone for money to support him in his work; relying solely upon God to move in the hearts of donors and stir them up to give. By his own account, this was done because he was convinced that the Lord would provide and would be more glorified in Muller’s work because of this. He never took a salary or sent a letter out to donors, and yet records show that over the course of his ministry he had been gifted the equivalent of $129,000,000 dollars for the sake of the ministry. Some of this he used to print and distribute Bibles and tracts, some he used to support ministry efforts abroad, and some he used to start and support schools. But, the majority of this money was put towards the establishment of 5 large orphanages that he built with the intention “to board, clothe and Scripturally educate children who have lost both parents by death.” At the peak of this ministry they had the capacity to house about 3,000 orphans at a time. All of this was started at a time in which there were approximately 6,000 orphans UNDER THE AGE OF 8 living in prisons because they had nowhere else to go. Needless to say, he saw a need in his community and tried to meet it, leaning upon God’s provision and care for physical and spiritual support.

Astoundingly, at the time of his death, through these five homes, George Muller housed, fed, educated, and cared for over 10,000 orphans. Because of his efforts in promoting the need of the orphans in England, especially in calling out the Church for failing to care for these, at the time of his death over 100,000 orphans were under care in homes like his. He labored hard and leaned upon God to move mountains. And God, as he always is, was good and kind and glorified through the work of this man. If you have time, here are some examples of God miraculously meeting needs for this good work: "Precious Answers to Prayer".

The Key to a Joyful Life

Undoubtedly, George Muller was busy. The amount of ministries he managed, his regular pastoral duties, his role as a husband and as a father to thousands, and all of this while not having a regular salary could have easily led to him feeling overwhelmed by non-stop work, anxiety, and dred. And yet, in reading his works, this does not seem to be the case. In the midst of Muller’s highly-busy, highly-effective, highly-stressful life, he points to one goal that grounded him through it all:

“I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not, how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man may be nourished...I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God and to meditation on it.”

Here, Muller does what we are so often scared to do for a number of reasons. He takes God at His Word. God tells us that he intends for us to be a happy people (Ps 32:11, 37:4; Phil 4:4, to list a few). And Muller was bold enough to trust that if he earnestly sought happiness in God, God would be kind to provide joy to sustain him through the hectic days, anxious nights, and empty dinner plates.

You and I, I’m sure, are met everyday with conflicting desires that might pull us away from this “first great and primary work”, and much of these conflicting tasks might even really be good and true pursuits. However, what would my life look like if I put “Be happy in God” as the first and primary item on my “To-Do” list everyday?

Would I not get as much sleep as I could otherwise? Perhaps. Would I sacrifice a few minutes that I could be spending responding to emails, texts, or phone calls? Undoubtedly. Would I “miss out” on seeing the latest headlines, scores, Tweets, and Instagram posts as soon as possible when I wake? For sure. But, would I be better off for it? Would I be in a position to approach my day with rightly ordered love, anxiety, and affection? Would I, from this position, actually be better equipped to recklessly love my neighbor, boldly pursue justice, and impatiently pursue my own holiness? Yes, yes, and yes.

Spiritual Disciplines: The Means to Lasting Joy in God

So, as we enter the New Year, I urge you, Redeemer, to think hard as you are making your list of resolutions, goals, or habits for the New Year: how would your life look different if you spent the next year with “Make myself happy in God” at the top of the list? So, this year, empty the “Spiritual Disciplines” tool belt: practice solitude, meditate on the word, pray regularly, feast joyfully, fast expectantly, whatever it takes to make yourself happy in God. These habits and disciplines we’ve been learning about on Sundays, in our Bible studies, and in our discipleship groups are not merely tasks to help us streamline our lives; they are the kind means that God has given us to experience true and lasting joy in him. Pursue him with all your might this year, church.