Since 2016, my husband and I have taken 24 to 48 hours away together in early January to reflect on the past year, take stock, recalibrate, and plan for the year ahead. During last year’s getaway, I sat at a coffee shop vigorously scribbling away in my journal—tweaking my Rule of Life, thinking through the Christian books I wanted to read, the habits and spiritual disciplines and goals I wanted to implement—when a question sprang to mind, interrupting my careful planning: Why am I doing this?
Convicted, I realized my motive wasn’t entirely pure. Even in planning for spiritual growth and service in the new year, the “idol factory” in my heart hummed with activity. In making lists and goals, a part of me wanted God, but another part was chasing achievement, productivity, religious box-checking, theological knowledge, and—the real kicker for me—“being enough” for God and everyone else.
In making lists and goals, a part of me wanted God, but another part was chasing achievement and religious box-checking.
I’d fallen prey to two subtle distortions I battle often in my Christian life. First, I slipped into operating as God’s employee trying to earn his favor, rather than living out of my gospel identity as his beloved child. Second, I jumbled the end and the means. Caught up in the outward act making of habits, goals, and rules, I’d forgotten they were a means to get to God.
Resolve to Encounter the Living God
As we make our goals for the new year, my humbling moment in the coffee shop might offer a helpful corrective, or at least raise a few probing questions. Why do we participate in spiritual disciplines? Create and attempt to follow a Rule of Life? Implement new habits of prayer or Bible reading or fasting from social media? Ultimately, we shouldn’t do all these things for their own sake or for any secondary, God-adjacent benefits they might provide. We should do them for the sake of knowing and encountering the Living God, the One we truly long for and most deeply need.
In Psalms 42 and 84, the Sons of Korah use the phrase “living God,” to describe God and their eager longing to be in his presence:
As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. (Ps. 42:1–2a)
My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the LORD; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. (Ps. 84:2)
Commenting on Psalm 84, Tim Keller says the psalmist “is fully aware that all of his heart’s deepest longings will be satisfied not by belief in some remote, impersonal divine force but only by a living God—one who is encountered as a personal, living presence.”
The Living God is not a mere concept to nerd out over, a mascot for our tribe or Christian subculture, an experience we gain in just the right worship environment, a therapist we go to only with our troubles, or a “to do” we dutifully check off in the morning.
Rather, our God is personal, active, and nearby. Through the work of Christ and the Spirit, we have real access to an encounterable God. And, like the psalmists, we eagerly seek to live in communion with him, like a thirsty deer panting for streams of water in the wilderness or a pilgrim traveling the long road to Jerusalem, daydreaming about coming into God’s courts at last.
Pathways to His Presence
Any spiritually oriented New Year’s resolutions are only helpful to the extent they posture our hearts to encounter the Living God. They are pathways to his presence, a rudder steering us straight into his arms, a roadmap for those who would seek his face and be transformed into his likeness.
Neither our personal transformation nor (thankfully!) our “acing” the Christian life is the ultimate aim. Rather, God himself—the Living God—is the goal, the end, the prize, the point. One day with him is better than a thousand elsewhere. One word from him is better than silver or gold. One real encounter with him is better than any religious box-checking, manufactured “worship” experience, or impersonal “aha!” moment studying the Bible as if it were merely an academic textbook.
While much of the outward-facing Christian life might seem to happen in God’s presence, we must ask if we’re truly seeking the face of the Living God or mechanically following standard Christian procedure: acting as a character in a play, chasing shallow counterfeit gods of our own making, holding the real God at arm’s length.
God himself—the Living God—is the goal, the end, the prize, the point.
This year, go ahead and resolve to read the whole Bible straight through or memorize a certain number of verses. Engage in spiritual disciplines like fasting. Consider crafting a Rule of Life and implementing new habits. Read nourishing Christian books and study theology and doctrine. Establish new habits of prayer, sign up for your church’s discipleship programs, pledge to serve your community. But in all these things, make knowing and encountering the Living God your ultimate goal.
Let’s practice spiritual disciplines and habits chiefly to gain God himself—not some counterfeit version of him, or even the incidental benefits we receive in the process.
God Is the Goal and the Means
We mustn’t forget the good news of the gospel: God is the goal and he has provided all the means we need to meet him. Through the work of Christ and his intercession on our behalf, we have unhindered access to the Living God. Hebrews 4:14–16 and Ephesians 3:12 instruct us to approach God boldly, confident not in our own righteousness but in the righteousness of Jesus our High Priest. Even more, the Holy Spirit warms our hearts to desire God, writes his law upon our hearts, and opens our eyes to understand his Word and behold his glory.
Spiritual disciplines are tools meant to help us sow into a life with the Father, Son, and Spirit. This New Year, let them plant you in the rich soil of his living presence and grace. There’s no place better and no goal higher.
Listen to Caroline’s newest song, “No Place Better (Psalm 84)” here. You can also pre-save her forthcoming album Psalms: The Poetry of Prayer here.
