The end of the year provides an excellent opportunity to reflect and take stock of our prayer life. We get to celebrate the answered prayers, reflect on how we prayed over the last year and make any changes that might improve our prayer habits over the next year.
The goals we set for the coming year are known as New Year’s resolutions. Even though these resolutions begin with great intentions, studies have shown that 80 percent of people who make New Year’s resolutions give up on them by the second week of February. But the problem isn’t the resolutions.
The fact is that many people make commitments throughout the year. Many Christians commit to reading their Bibles more or being more generous, and these commitments sometimes don’t come to fruition.
But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make these kinds of commitments. Making commitments or resolutions is the only way to improve in these areas. It just means we have to be smart about how we do it.
Setting resolutions to pray
Resolutions for Christians often center around faith. And for those who follow Jesus, the conviction to put more time and effort into our prayer lives is hard to ignore. To help with this, we could make several resolutions to improve our prayer lives. Here are some potential prayer-related resolutions:
- Praying more consistently
- Praying for longer time periods
- Praying more strategically
- Praying more often with others
- Praying scriptures more
- Praying for others more often
- Keeping a prayer journal
- Praying for the Great Commission
As you can see, there are many ways we can improve our prayer life. One of the things we can do to ensure that our prayer-oriented resolutions stick is to be very clear about what we want to change. Unclear or overly ambitious goals will negatively affect your follow-through.
Making prayer resolutions that succeed
For instance, someone might say they resolve to “pray more.” But does that mean they want to pray more frequently or for longer periods of time? It’s essential to know exactly what you’re committing to do when making your resolutions.
Once you decide what changes to make, you must determine how to get there. Let’s say that you want to pray more consistently. First, you need to take stock of where you are now. Do you pray once a week? Less? More?
If you only pray once a week, deciding to pray twice a week is a 100 percent increase. Too often, we set extremely lofty goals, and that’s why they fail. Going from praying once a week (52 times a year) to every day (365 days a year) is a lot. That might be your long-term goal, but going from an occasional walk to completing a marathon requires some steps in between.
You can work toward a long-term goal, like praying every day, in smaller steps. For the first quarter of the year, you could commit to praying twice a week for 10 minutes. If you’ve been able to keep that commitment, you might choose to pray four times a week in the second quarter. But if you get to the second quarter and haven’t been able to keep your commitment to praying four times a week, it’s time to figure out what’s holding you back and recommit to praying twice a week again.
Even if you feel that daily prayer is important (and it is), the aim is a consistent improvement, not just to set big goals you might not reach. Going from occasionally praying to praying every day might be ideal, but the data says the chances of giving up on a goal that’s too ambitious are pretty high. And once you fail in that commitment, it will be harder to make it again.
But if you can stick to a small, achievable commitment, making another attainable goal next year will be easier. That’s how you build up disciplined momentum in your life.
Pray with and for Jesus Film Project!
Jesus Film Project’s goal for everyone, everywhere, to hear the story of Jesus in their own heart language relies on the faithful prayers of many Christians. If you’d like to support us in prayer, please visit the Jesus Film Project prayer page!
For more prayer resources, check out the following posts:
