Starting the New Year with a Christ-Centered Marriage

Introduction

A Christ-centered marriage focuses on being in God’s will. In my marriage we pray together and attend church together. We discuss Scripture issues and topics. And we each have our own individual faith life with Christ.

Putting Christ at the center of our lives keeps our focus where it needs to be: on Him and His plans for us. When we do this as a married couple, we are dedicating our marriage to God and to serving Him in our marriage.

At this time of year, it’s important to set goals for the new year but especially to set spiritual goals as a couple. While I’m generally not a fan of New Year’s resolutions, I am a great believer in setting goals for the coming year. What’s the difference? Resolutions are what you want to change – the focus on bad behavior you hope to turn around. Goals are positive and focus on what you want to achieve. Resolutions just sit there. Goals can be broken down into smaller steps to make them manageable.

Reflecting on the Past Year

This is one of the times every year that I engage in a planning session with my husband and kids. We evaluate our goals for the last season (calendar year, academic year, summer, etc.) and make plans for the new season. We don’t go all crazy and plan for 10 goals in each season. But we pick a few in various areas of our lives to be focusing on. We also take time to review the goals from the previous year and evaluate how we did. Sometimes the goals need fine-tuning, and they carry into the new year. Sometimes the goals were met, and we can celebrate. Other times we need to ditch a goal altogether because it didn’t end up working out for our lives that year.

In marriage we should periodically celebrate the blessings and challenges in our marriage. The new year is a good time to undertake this activity. Knowing where we’ve been is an important step to moving forward in the coming year. Celebrate what went well and what tested you as a couple in the previous year.

Then move to identifying areas of growth in your marriage. Where can you work to make your marriage stronger? How can you invite the Holy Spirit to come and direct you this year? Where do you need to work individually to make your marriage stronger? How can you use God’s Word to improve your marriage?

Setting Spiritual Goals Together

Once you know where you’ve been it’s easier to have a goal for moving forward. I like to set individual goals before setting marital goals. That way I know what God wants from me and I can dovetail that into what God wants for my marriage. So far (it’s Dec 20 as I write this) my individual goals for next year include riding my bike 20 miles each Saturday, memorizing 52 Bible verses, and professional goals for my website in terms of views. I’d also like to find a good Bible study and really dig in this year. My husband and I have a date coming up tonight, so I’ll start the conversation about our spiritual goals as a couple. Deciding on goals is a multi-day conversation in our household. We initiate the conversation, then we talk a bit, then we take time to think a bit, then we talk again…you see the pattern with our date nights this time of year. 😄

Need some ideas for what your marriage goals may look like for spiritual growth? You may want to pray together daily, read the Bible as a couple, serve in the local church together, or volunteer together or as a family. The list is endless. Anything that brings you closer to God and gives you quality time together is a great way to attain spiritual growth for the coming year. And just one or two goals is enough. Strong marriages plan just enough goals to be successful and not overwhelmed.

SMART Goals

Pray about your goals first. This is an important step. We never want to move ahead without consulting God first. Then be sure your goals are SMART:

            Specific goals are ones that tell us exactly what we want to achieve. I want to memorize 52 Bible verses this year and I have a book to help me do that. I don’t just want to memorize Scripture because that doesn’t tell me what the exact goal is. In my marriage we want to pray together every day. We aren’t just saying “pray more” as that doesn’t say how often we want to make it happen.

            Measurable goals tell us when we’ve achieved the goal. By having 52 verses to memorize, I can measure how far along I am in the process. I can set mini goals like having 26 memorized by the end of June. When we say we want to pray every day we can measure that. Did we pray every day this week? If not we can take action steps to make it happen.

            Achievable goals are ones that are attainable. We can actually do the goal realistically. These are realistic goals. If I wanted to memorize all of Scripture, that’s a great goal but not achievable in a year. Is praying together daily achievable? Well, my husband works nights so there are entire days I don’t see him. But we can talk on the phone or text prayers so I would say the goal is achievable.

            Relevant goals tie to our lives. They align with our values. Memorizing Scripture is in line with my values of growing closer to God. Praying together brings us closer to God so it’s definitely relevant to our goals.

            Time-bound goals have an end – we know when we want to complete them by. For my Scripture memorization, there are 52 weeks in a year and 52 verses, so that’s my timeline. For praying together every day I give us a month to get up to speed, then figure we can sustain it after that.

Practical Steps to Stay on Track

Keep each other accountable. Stay in touch about your goals with check-ins throughout the year. I do this about once a quarter (so every three months). I see what we’ve done in terms of mini steps to get to each goal and see if anything needs to be modified. Maybe I didn’t foresee a step involved with reaching the goal. Then I modify the steps to the goal accordingly.

I also talk about these steps and updates with my husband for our marital goals. Maybe come April we aren’t praying together every day anymore. Then it’s time to reconnect. Let’s figure out why it’s not happening and what needs to change for it to happen. Maybe we need to set a reminder in our phone to pray every morning at 7 when he gets home. Or maybe I need to set a reminder to text a prayer to him.

I will also ask him to follow up with me about how my Scripture memorization is going. If I have to give an accounting of it to someone, I’m much more likely to stay on track.

To help you stay on track by using tools like prayer journals or Bible study guides. I’ll buy a prayer journal for us where we can log prayer requests and answers to prayer. In God’s grace I k now He will answer our prayers on a regular basis.

Encouragement and Final Thoughts

I love this time of year because it’s all about a fresh start. New goals inspire me to begin again and learn a new skill or change my daily habits. The only way I’ll get to successful goals is by making them SMART and getting started.

Keep in mind that this post is about spiritual growth as a couple. You can also make financial goals, physical goals, personal goals, relationship goals, and professional goals, for your life as an individual as well as a couple. Check out Bible studies and a Bible reading plan. Make an action plan, then get busy making it happen. A happy marriage is one that is committed to Christ Jesus and seeks His will, then takes steps to be in His will. Success takes hard work, but I know you are up to the challenge.

Trust God to guide your marriage. Trust that He has the best plan in mind for you and your marriage and He wants you to be successful.

Let’s pray: Heavenly Father, we come before you humbled by the opportunity to approach you with our needs and requests. We thank you that you care for us and have a perfect plan for our lives. Thank you that you want our marriage to be successful. We come before you ready to make a plan for the coming year. We want to serve you and grow closer together with you in the center of our marriage. Please show us the steps to take to reach the goals you have for us in the coming year. Help us to stay on track and trust you with the process. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.

Have some creative ideas for new year’s goals? Share them in the comments section!

With love,

🌸 Andrea

Did you find this post interesting or helpful? If so, please share it – you can use the social buttons below.

When friends share posts they are telling Google that the site is worth showing to others – and that helps build my small business. Thank you for sharing!