The Year of Renewal

Michaela Jane
Dec 29, 2018
4 min read

Instead of writing new years resolutions every year and then forgetting about them by the end of January, my extended family names their year. This is something I had never heard of but am starting to see ALL over the internet!

While it is cool to have certain goals to work towards - and don't get my wrong, I still write those new years resolutions - I find that having a theme for the year helps me work towards something. I am such a goal-setting person. If I don't have a goal, I sit in limbo and can sit there for months. Whether it is a year of hope, a year of change or a year of being present, naming your year helps you work towards something and it gives you something to look back on at the end.

What did I change my mind on? How did I change? What did I learn?

2018 for me was the year of the chisel - and by golly has it been the hardest year that I have named so far. If you want to see the inspiration behind the name, I would recommend you go and check out this video from the skit guys.

The whole premise for the video is that God is chiseling away to make a new creation, his new creation. And while we may opening give some things that we consider easy, it is the hard parts that God wants. I new there were habits I wanted to change and so (blindly and quite ignorantly) I named my year the year of the chisel and named each month a different habit that I wanted to work on.

The first month - the only one I really stuck to - was laziness. Each day I would write one sentence to sum up the day and a verse on laziness that I could then meditate on the next day to help me overcome my laziness by seeing what the bible says about it. The whole theory was that if it was at the front of my mind then I would be conscious of it.

But I soon started to realise that God had a different plan for me.

Ephesians 2:10 states:

For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Believing that I was God's handiwork required quite a bit of a mind shift. Many things that I believed about my past - whether it be relationships, decisions, or events - turned out to be twisted by time and lies that Satan had told me. What I thought would be chiseling bad habits turned into a chiseling of the lies I believed that had come to define me - my identity.

By golly was that hard.

But also so, so good. I am certainly not a well formed new creation yet, but if I had to choose one thing I learned this year, it would be that I am learning to trust God with things I didn't know I could trust him with. I am learning to understand who God is, and who I am through him.

My mentor suggested that I read John 4 - the story of the Samaritan woman who met Jesus at the well. She believed that one reason that I felt so tired was because I was drinking from all the wrong wells of life - all but the well of Jesus Christ the giver of living water.

Which led to me discover my name for 2019.

The Year of Renewal.

Revelation 21:5 New International Version (NIV)

5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

I originally intended to name this year REPLENISH, but that is defined as "to restore to a former level or condition." I don't want to be restored to my former self. That self drank from the well of jealousy and greed, comparison and judgement.

Renewal means "the replacement or repair of something." That is what I want.

So I google searched what the Bible says on renewal and found that there is a lot!!!! In fact, Revelation 21:5 says to write it down. So that's what I did. And guess what I came up with. 12 key themes that keep repeating themselves.

In no particular order, I am going to name each month (again) a certain thing that the Bible says needs to be renewed and over the year I will pray, read about, and learn.

Renewal of the mind - Romans 12:2
Renewal of the heart - Psalm 51:10
Renewal of the spirit - Psalm 51:10
Renewal of strength - Isaiah 40:31
Renewal of the body - Colossians 3:10-12
Renewal of faith - Galatians 2:10
Renewal of love - Revelations 2:4-5
Renewal of belief - Romans 10:9
Renewal of hope - Jeremiah 29:11
Renewal of the soul - Psalm 23:1-6
Renewal of peace - Philippians 4:6-7
Renewal of wisdom - 1 Peter 5:8

I will be renewed. I will not be perfect by the end of the year by any means, but my prayer is that I will be renewed in Christ and that HE will be my living water.

And for accountability, every month at the beginning of the month I will write a short little blog (lets be honest it probably won't be short) about what I learnt in the previous month and what I look forward to about the next month.