515-New Years Resolutions with Hope

515-New Years Resolutions with Hope

Happy New Year!

If you're reading this a couple days into 2026—welcome. And if you're reading this in the middle of 2037, it still applies.

Because God is still on the throne.

He is still a good Father.

And He is still interested in crafting and molding your heart—especially in the middle of real life… including the hard parts.

Put Your Growth Mindset On (Yes, Literally)

If you've been in our Delight Your Marriage sphere for any length of time, you know I'm a little obsessed with growth. So, the New Year is one of the things I look forward to the most.

I want to share something that we do in coaching calls. It can honestly look silly… but it works.

We put our hands over our heads like a hat and we say:

"Put your growth mindset on."

Why? 

Because the posture matters.

A growth mindset says:

• "God can change me."

• "I'm not finished yet."

• "This isn't the end of my story."

• "My marriage isn't stuck forever."

A fixed mindset says:

• "This is just how I am."

• "Take it or leave it."

• "This is all there is."

For us as believers, a growth mindset is a reflection of our faith. 

Our hope is rooted in a God who raises the dead (Romans 8:11), who changes hearts of stone into hearts of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26), and who redeems the years the locusts have stolen (Joel 2:25). 

Having a growth mindset is a reflection of the hope we have in Jesus.

A New Year Reflection That Actually Changes You

Here's what I like to do around the New Year (and yes, if you haven't done it yet, you still have time).

I go month by month through the previous year and write down what I remember—hard things, good things, major moments, heartache, breakthroughs.

Then, I pray:

"God, what do You want me to learn from this year?"

Because honestly… if He doesn't bring it to mind, maybe it isn't the thing He wants me to carry forward.

Then after I list the moments, I write two categories:

• Wins

• Learnings

Not because I'm trying to build a scrapbook of accomplishments or places I fell short, but because I'm trying to build wisdom.

When You've Been Crushed… God Is Doing Something

There's a passage in 2 Corinthians 1 where Paul describes being:

• utterly weighed down

• crushed

• despairing of life itself

And then he says this:

7 And our hope for you [our confident expectation of good for you] is firmly grounded [assured and unshaken], since we know that just as you share as partners in our sufferings, so also you share as partners in our comfort.

8 For we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about our trouble in [the west coast province of] Asia, how we were utterly burdened beyond our strength, so that we despai