A new year is supposed to feel fresh, right? Clean slate. New energy. Big expectations.
But for a lot of us, January doesn’t feel like a reset — it feels like we’re dragging last year into the new one. Disappointments. Loss. Stuff we never asked for. Seasons that didn’t turn out the way we hoped.
Some of us are carrying things that weren’t our fault at all. Decisions other people made. Circumstances we had no control over. And while it’s hard enough to move on from our own mistakes, it’s even harder to move on from pain we didn’t choose.
That’s what makes the story of Naomi in the book of Ruth so relatable.
Naomi didn’t just have a bad year — she had a bad decade. She lost her husband. She lost her sons. She lost her future. And when she finally returned home, she said, “Don’t call me Naomi anymore. Call me Mara.” She wanted her name — her identity — to match her pain. She let the things that had happened to her, mold her into someone she was never created to be.
And honestly, a lot of us get that. When life hits hard enough, it starts to shape how we see ourselves.
What’s powerful about Naomi’s story isn’t that everything suddenly got better. It’s that in the middle of her bitterness and disappointment, she made one simple decision: she made a decision to draw closer to God.
She didn’t wait for her circumstances to change. She didn’t wait until she had all the answers. She just took a step.
That’s the part we often miss.
We tend to think drawing closer to God requires something extreme — a massive lifestyle overhaul, a perfect spiritual routine, or having it all together first. But sometimes drawing closer is as simple as starting a conversation. Making space. Turning down the noise. It may be as simple as choosing God over your phone when you wake up in the morning.
The Bible puts it this way: “Come close to God, and God will come close to you.” (James 4:8)
That promise doesn’t come with conditions. It doesn’t say after life improves. It doesn’t say once you’re healed. It just says, come close. You don’t have to fix your past before you take that step. You don’t have to carry everything alone. And you don’t have to let what happened to you define who you’re becoming. What would the next 12 months l0ok like for you if you made a decision each day to simply make space for God.
One decision really does change everything.
You don’t have to wait for life to change. You can take a step today. And you don’t have to take it alone.
Want More?
This is part of a message I shared recently at Connexus Church. If you’d like to watch the full message you can find it here on YouTube. And if you’re looking for a simple, pressure-free way to begin making space for God in your everyday life, I’ve created something called the Reset Journal — one Scripture per page, plenty of room to reflect, and no dates so you can start anytime. You can download a free digital copy here. For those who would like a printed version, you can purchase your copy from Amazon.
