A new year brings with it hope. Something stirs within us as the calendar resets, as though the simple act of naming a new year might open space for something new within us. We feel the pull of possibility. Yet our hope can be tinged with some skepticism. Memory tempers our hope. We have crossed this threshold before, full of resolve, only to discover how stubborn we remain.
That tension is not accidental; it names something true about us. We long for renewal, but we have learned to doubt our own capacity to bring it about. We intuit that lasting change must be something more than a well-intentioned prayer coupled with willpower and resolve. Scripture confirms this instinct. Renewal, the Bible insists, begins with God’s grace. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing,” the Apostle Paul tells us, “it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph. 2:8-9). And what the risen Christ offers is something that reaches further and cuts deeper than a refined version of our old life: “Behold, I am making all things new” (Rev. 21:5).
Still, the question lingers. If Jesus is making all things new, why does change so often feel elusive? Why do our sincere hopes outrun our actual lives?
Part of the answer is that we misunderstand how God brings about genuine renewal in human lives. We imagine transformation as something like a montage in a movie: sudden and decisive, driven by a quick prayer and a measure of resolve. Scripture paints a different picture. It shows us that we are shaped less by what we decide in rare moments of clarity and more by what we do, repeatedly, in ordinary time. Our lives, then, are shaped by the practices that quietly train our loves day after day.
This means that none of us enters a new year unformed. Long before we articulate our goals, our hearts are already being aimed in particular directions. We are being trained by what captures our attention; by what we return to when we are tired or bored; by what fills the margins of our days. The habits of modern life—the reflexive reach for our phones, the steady diet of outrage and anxiety, the pressure to be endlessly productive—are not neutral. They function as liturgies. They shape what we fear, what we desire, and what we trust to give us life. The question is not whether our loves are being formed, but whether they are being formed toward God or toward substitutes that cannot satisfy.
The question is not whether our loves are being formed, but whether they are being formed toward God or toward substitutes that cannot satisfy.
The gospel does not leave us trapped within those rival formations. Jesus renews us by entering our embodied lives and working within the routines we already have. One of the ordinary ways Christ makes us new is by retraining our loves through practices that reorient our hearts toward God. This is why the Christian tradition has always paid careful attention to habit in response to God’s grace. When habit happens as a response to grace, it becomes a means through which God patiently reshapes us over time.
One such practice, deeply rooted in the life of the early church, is lectio divina, the slow, prayerful reading of scripture. In contrast to approaches that treat the Bible primarily as information to master or content to consume, lectio divina invites us to receive scripture as a word addressed to us by God. Early Christians would read a short passage attentively, dwell upon it patiently, pray it back to the Lord, and allow it to settle into the heart. Over time, this habit does something quietly radical, particularly in our current moment. If we adopt the same pattern as the early church, it will teach us to listen in a culture that thrives on noise, to dwell in a world addicted to speed, and to attend to God’s voice rather than the endless demands of the moment.
Seen this way, lectio divina becomes more than a mere devotional option; it is a form of resistance. It resists the formation of our loves by secular distractions and short-term gratifications. It slows time, steadies our attention, and reorients our desires. What’s more, it reminds us that renewal comes by placing ourselves again and again before the living God who speaks. It is through such ordinary faithfulness that Christ’s promise of newness begins to take concrete shape in our lives.
This habit goes beyond reading the Bible. Worshiping together every week brings us back to the story of redemption, which changes the things we love. Establishing a regular rhythm of prayer breaks the illusion that we can do everything on our own. Practices like Sabbath, being generous, and being hospitable help us let go of our need to be productive, collect things, and be in charge. None of these practices change who we are right away. But when you put them all together, they slowly and surely shape us, training our hearts to cherish what really gives life.
The Apostle Paul talks about this kind of transformation that happens when the mind is renewed, (Rom. 12:1–2). It is a transformation that happens over time, as our loves change. It comes by faithfully going back to the habits that bring us closer to God’s renewing mercies every day.
Perhaps, then, the most meaningful resolution we can make this year is about loving something different. It is making the decision to allow Christ to retrain our desires, to place ourselves again and again in the path of his renewing grace. For when our loves are made new, our lives will follow, and the One who makes all things new will be at work within us, morning by morning, day by day.
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