A Time for Prayerful Reflection at the End of the Year

In God’s arrangement of the universe, the passage of time is marked by days, months, seasons, and years. We experience each interval of twenty-four hours a day, around thirty days a month, and several months a season, without interruption. 

Yet when the year begins to wind down, we often feel surprised at how quickly the time has gone by and wonder where the past 365 days went.

In the busyness of our lives, it would be easy to just let the year come to an end without thinking too much about it. But the end of the year is a unique opportunity to set aside a special time for personal prayer and fellowship with the Lord about the year we just lived through. As we open our hearts to Him, we can conclude the year in a meaningful way and prepare ourselves for the new year ahead.

Letting the Lord shine on us

As we begin our dedicated time with the Lord and open our hearts to Him, He has the opportunity to shine on us and make us aware of any sins we haven’t yet dealt with. 

Since the sins we commit disrupt our fellowship with the Lord, we can’t afford to let them go. We need to confess our sins to Him. 

1 John 1:9 says:

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

When we confess our sins, we experience God’s forgiveness and cleansing. It’s good to keep short accounts with the Lord and not let unconfessed sins accumulate. We don’t want to carry anything that negatively affects our walk with the Lord into the new year. By dealing with any unresolved sins, we can begin the new year in a positive way.

Appreciating the Lord’s care for us

In our time with the Lord, we can consider how He has cared for us, both materially and spiritually, during this past year. This inspires in us a sense of thankfulness as we recall how the Lord has been our Shepherd, caring for us without fail during both our difficult circumstances and joyous occasions.

As we recall instances of God’s faithfulness, we can testify as the prophet Jeremiah did in Lamentations 3:22-23:

“It is Jehovah’s lovingkindness that we are not consumed, for His compassions do not fail; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.”

Every morning during this past year, whatever condition we were in, we were met with God’s tender compassions. Reflecting on the details of our year causes us to see His great faithfulness toward us, in matters big and small. Surely thanksgiving and praises to Him will fill our hearts.

Being refreshed in the Lord’s love

If we spend time to consider the Lord’s lovingkindness, compassions, and faithfulness, we’ll surely realize again how great His love is for us. His love even caused Him to die for us so we can be forgiven and washed from our sins and enjoy fellowship with Him.

Through all the ups and downs of our year, whether we realized it or not, God never stopped loving us. As Romans 8:38-39 tells us:

“For I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor things present nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

We can rest securely knowing that God will always love us, and that nothing will ever be able to separate us from His love. As we consider God’s great love for us, our hearts are filled with love for Him. We can thank Him for loving us and tell Him again and again that we love Him.

Offering a fresh consecration to the Lord

During this time of fellowship with the Lord, we can also offer a fresh consecration to Him. This simply means that we give every aspect of ourselves and our lives to Him. Consecrating ourselves to the Lord keeps us walking in His way and gives Him the room to grow in us and work in us. Our consecration also brings us into a fresh enjoyment of all that God is.

Romans 12:1 says:

“I exhort you therefore, brothers, through the compassions of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, well pleasing to God, which is your reasonable service.”

On the cusp of a new year, we can be reminded of the compassions of God and consecrate ourselves to the Lord. We can pray something simple like this:

“Lord Jesus, thank You for Your faithfulness, Your love, and Your compassions. Lord, I love You. I offer myself to You again. I give this new year to You. Lord, I allow You the freedom to work in me.”

Learning to number our days

In Psalm 90, Moses spoke of the brevity of human life. In verse 12, he asked God: 

“Teach us then to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”

It’s healthy to consider how long we might have on this earth, and how fleeting human life truly is. Verse 10 of this Psalm says, “The days of our years are seventy years, or, if because of strength, eighty years.” We should ask the Lord to grant us mercy that each of our days would count in His eyes.  

Our fellowship with the Lord on this matter should cause us to realize the preciousness of each day. Each day of the new year before us is full of fresh opportunities to know Him, grow in His life, enjoy Him in His Word, and experience Him as the One who lives in us. By spending this time in fellowship with Him, we can be reminded anew that we’re living on this earth for God’s purpose.

We pray that each of us would have a good conclusion to this year by setting aside a special time with the Lord, and that we would all start the new year with a fresh consecration to Him. 

An excellent way to begin the new year is to start reading the Bible consistently. If you live in the US, you can order a free copy of the New Testament Recovery Version here.