Beyond Resolutions: A Sacred Listening Practice for the Turn of the Year

There is a particular kind of weight that gathers in late December.

It isn’t always dramatic. Sometimes it arrives as a polite question—So what are your goals for next year?—and suddenly the machinery of self-improvement begins to hum. Lists form. Outcomes glitter. The imagination starts building a safer future where everything stays manageable because we stayed disciplined.

Resolutions can be sincere. They can even be wise. But I’ve noticed how easily they become a subtle bargain with the coming year: If I choose the right outcomes and execute them well, I can finally feel steady.

And that is where many of us drift—without noticing—from discernment into control.

Outcome-focus is tempting because it offers measurable comfort: a number, a milestone, a finish line. But the spiritual life rarely moves in straight lines. It moves in seasons. It moves in spirals. It moves by invitation—often quieter than our plans, often truer than our urgency.

Sacred listening begins not with the question, What will I accomplish?
It begins with something far more vulnerable: What is God saying? And who am I becoming as I respond?

Resolutions measure outcomes. Discernment measures alignment.

A resolution can be a strategy for securing the future—an effort to build peace with effort and control. Discernment is different. Discernment does not ask you to dominate what’s ahead; it asks you to become available to the One who is already there.

Sacred listening trains that availability.

It begins with stillness—not as passivity, but as courage. The willingness to lay down striving long enough to listen. The willingness to let reality speak plainly. The willingness to be led.

“Be still, and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10)

Stillness is not a pause before the “real work.” For leaders, stillness is the real work—because without it, we begin mistaking anxiety for responsibility, and intensity for faithfulness. Without it, we can’t tell the difference between the Spirit’s invitation and our own need to feel in control.

This is where the year turns differently.

Not with a clenched jaw.
Not with a heroic plan.
But with a quieter vow:

I will listen before I decide.

Being comes before doing

One of the more subtle distortions in leadership is that we start believing our value is proved by productivity. Even in ministry. Especially in ministry. We can baptize it with spiritual language. We can call it excellence. We can call it sacrifice. We can call it faithfulness.

But sacred listening keeps returning us to a deeper sequence: being before doing.

The question beneath most resolutions is: What should I do to become better?
The question beneath discernment is: Who am I in Christ, and what is God forming in me?

Because calling isn’t only about what you do. Calling is what God grows in you—and what God releases through you—over time. Discernment practice re-centers you in that truth: identity received, not achieved; guidance discovered, not manufactured.

Doing still matters. Plans still matter. Faithfulness still takes shape in real actions.

But sacred listening restores the order.

First, communion.
Then, clarity.
Then, the next faithful step.

Listening is not passive. It is relational.

Some leaders resist discernment practice because it sounds like “waiting.” And yes, sometimes it is. But not the empty waiting of avoidance. The waiting of discernment is attentive, reverent, responsive. It’s the posture that says:

God is already speaking. My task is to become present enough to hear.

And one of the gentlest gifts of sacred listening is that it gives you permission to stop forcing instant conclusions.

Not every nudge needs immediate action.
Not every burden is yours to carry.
Not every desire is guidance.

Discernment is not only about hearing; it is about testing what you hear—holding it up to Scripture, to wisdom, to the fruit it produces, to the peace (or unrest) it carries in the presence of God.

In other words: discernment helps you listen with humility, not impulsiveness.

A gentler alternative to New Year resolutions: three practices of sacred listening

If you want something practical—and most leaders do—sacred listening doesn’t leave you with vague inspiration. It offers tools. Not as tasks to prove yourself, but as practices to form you—steady enough for real life, gentle enough to endure.

1) Keep a Spirit’s Basket

A Spirit’s Basket is simply a place to collect what rises in the listening space: insights, scriptures, questions, nudges, burdens, consolations. You are not required to fix everything you notice. You are only asked to gather it honestly and hold it prayerfully.

This matters because the Spirit often speaks in whispers and longings, not announcements. And leaders—especially leaders—can forget what they heard the moment the day accelerates.

So write it down.

Let the Basket become a small act of faith: I trust God enough to listen. I trust God enough to remember.

2) Pray a Mini-Examine at the end of the day

A daily examine doesn’t have to be long. It can be a five-minute return—a way of re-entering the presence of God without pretending the day was cleaner than it was.

Here is a simple pattern:

• Calling: Where did I sense God’s invitation today?

• Energy: How did I spend my energy—drained or renewed?

• Resources: Did I steward what was entrusted to me faithfully?

• Discernment: Did I pause to listen before acting, or did I rush ahead?

Notice what these questions do.

They shift your attention from outcomes to alignment—
from “How much did I get done?” to “Where was God present, and how did I respond?”

That is a different kind of beginning.

3) Watch for fruit, not trophies

Resolutions love trophies: bigger numbers, cleaner systems, visible wins.

Discernment watches for fruit.

Galatians 5 names the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. These are not achievements you grind out through willpower. They are evidence of God’s Spirit growing within you over time.

That reframing heals something. It reduces the quiet violence of self-improvement spirituality—the kind that turns January into a proving ground.

It means the question for the year isn’t, What will I accomplish?
It becomes: What is being formed in me?

And that question changes how you lead—because your leadership stops being fueled by fear of failure and starts being shaped by faithful presence.

The invitation at the turn of the year

If your life feels cluttered, start with the empty cup.
If your calling feels cloudy, return to the listening place.
If your leadership feels anxious, come back to the pace of prayer.

The year does not require reinvention. More often, it invites return.

Return to stillness.
Return to Scripture.
Return to honest noticing.
Return to the “yes” that is truly yours to offer—
and the “no” that protects what God has entrusted to you.

And when you forget, you don’t fail. You return again. Grace welcomes repetition. Listening deepens over time.

If you want a simple, guided companion for this season, Sacred Listening was written to help you build steady practices—so discernment becomes a rhythm, not a once-a-year idea.

Purchase Sacred Listening and develop a rhythm of discernment:

https://churchtrainingcenter.com/sacred-listening/